The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Heroes
by Remvis
Summary: The events of Twilight Princess are beginning; but Link for some reason has not yet even been born yet. The Goddesses make due with a couple of unlikely heroes from another world. Is the world destined to finally fall, or will these two young men save it before Twilight Ensnares everything? Two OCs.
1. Chapter 1

Russell's world ended when he died. Wow, that's kind of obvious, right? It was a severe car crash, he had been going several miles per hour over the speed limit, and had slammed his body at incredibly high speeds into the side of a mountain as he lost his control of his car in the rain.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He was on his way to see his sister, who was in the hospital awaiting him.

And now he was dead.

At least, that's what all his senses had been telling him. High speeds, then abrupt stopping, slamming his body upon the dashboard, miles of pain hitting his body as glass cut into him, rendering him incapable of any feelings as his body surrendered to the stress of impact.

The world stopped. Grass froze, the sky blazed orange, and the air came to a halt. The car froze in its trajectory, glass hanging in midair, the sound of the car breaking ceased, leaving nothing behind but the moment, hanging in the air like an apple read to fall from the tree, hanging in suspension and waiting for gravity to snap its stem.

"We need him, do we not sisters?" came a voice, rich and deep like the mountains, like soothing flames of the hearth.

"Indeed, his soul is exactly what we need in order to bring balance to the cycle." Said a calm voice, rushing over my mind like running water.

"Our own Hero still hasn't been reincarnated, and we need someone like this boy now more than ever, before our world is plunged unto darkness." Said a third voice, serene like a forest, thriving and full of life.

"Then we need to ask the soul," the first voice began again, before aiming it's question at me. "We come from another world, and it is in grave danger. We fear that if we do not have someone like you to aid it, then it shall fall to ruin. Please, will you help us?"

I had no idea what was going on. I might like to consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I had just gotten into a car crash and now it seemed like some voices were asking if I wanted to… save? Another world? I wasn't completely sure.

If that was the case, well. I had just got in a car accident, so I wasn't likely going to stay alive longer than a few minutes anyways, even if…

For some odd reason I had awareness of the car once more, as if thinking about it allowed me sight, but it was as if I was outside my body, looking on the frozen car crash from and outside point of view. It was then that I remembered that I hadn't been the only one in the car.

My friend Zach had been with me when we had gotten the call from my sister, hearing that she was about to go into that life changing surgery. It broke my heart to think that I would be dead and she wouldn't have her older brother around to assist her in her hour of need. But my friends Zach, he looked worse off than I did. His carside didn't even have a air bag, and he had slammed his head across the glass, his body having been thrown through the windshield.

Damn rain, and lightning, causing me to swerve at the last possible moment. I looked towards the light that had come closer to me. Red, Blue, Green, the three lights came to me, expecting an answer.

"I need my friend, Zachary, if I'm going to be entering this world of yours." I calmly said to the lights. "He's going to die with me here anyways, so if you have a way of giving me a second chance then you have to bring his soul too.

The lights seemed to confer for a moment.

"Zachary, eh?" inquired the flaming red spirit. "He holds great power, it might hold promise to bring him as well."

"Still," continued the calm blue light, "He isn't the wisest of men. While intelligent, he might lead you on a road to ruin."

"Sister," Interjected the lively green voice, "He deserves to live just as much as Russell here. I believe that we should bring him as well."

The blue light conceded, and they drew closer to me once more. "We shall allow Zachary to come with you into our world, but only if he chooses to do so, as it is his soul we will be taking into our world. Both of your bodies shall remain here, and we shall create new ones in their fashion in our own world."

"Then I agree to go into your world." I told them. If I was going to help them save their world, then I should probably accept, right? That seemed like a sensible thing for me to do.

The lights seemed to nod. Is that possible? Can a ball of light nod a head if they don't have a head to nod? Am I just overthinking this? Probably.

"We shall send you ahead of him, for we need you in our world as soon as possible. Should Zachary choose to follow you, then we will send him to you."

"We shall grant you our boons," said the red light. "Such that you will be able to succeed in your journey. We shall grant you the ability to unlock powers, as the hero who should have taken this quest would have had to do. You shall know at the time what you need to do."

I smiled, or at least I think that I did, but as far as I was concerned, I was merely a floating soul. We aren't getting into that again. "Then send me off." I told the lights.

The lights enveloped me, and the next thing that I knew was that I was unconscious. Well, actually since I was aware of it I suppose I was conscious, and rather that I was in a state of nigh sleepiness, since I was aware of the world around me to a certain degree. I shook my head, trying to get my bearings.

It was dark, and looked like the sun was on the horizon. I stood up, looking around myself. I appeared to be in a forested area, dense with trees and woodland animals that scurried about to and fro. I appeared to be on some sort of path, and I could see a spring of water nearby on the side of the path.

I stretched my limbs, not sure how I actually had a body, but that kind of thinking was kind of inconsequential; the lights who had brought me unto this world were clearly some sort of Gods, or Goddesses I suppose, and it made sense that they'd be able to recreate my body for my given that train of thought.

I wandered around, towards the spring, and was astonished when I felt an aura come over me. A deep sense of calm came over me, before unease settled in. Something was wrong in the world, the spring was trying to discuss this with me, but I couldn't understand it.

I turned and left the spring, letting the aura that had come over me fall away as I hastened from that spot. A mystery to be solved later, I suppose.

As I looked around once more, I noticed that there appeared to be a bridge in one direction, and simply an open path the other way.

A light dropped from the sky and landed a few feet from where I was, and I was only mildly unsurprised to see my friend Zach lying on the ground, groaning as if he hurt in multiple places. Which I suppose could make sense, given that we were both given new bodies.

"Gods." Zach moaned, "I feel like death itself."

I gave out a laugh; I hadn't hurt nearly as much as he seemingly did. "Get up Zach, we've got a journey to embark on."

The strawberry blond haired boy rolled over slowly, allowing him to look up at his friend. "Sheesh Russell, you just had to get us killed, and then you get us sent to another universe?" He stood up slowly, swaying on the spot for a moment before regaining his balance. "I don't know how you did it, but hey, I'm not gonna complain all that much."

Something important to know is that Zach's favorite past time was to play video games. And as such, it makes sense that he wouldn't mind that even though he died on Earth, he was now granted a second life on a planet that supposedly had gods and magic, evident by the talking lights.

He looked around, taking his bearings. "Are we in a forest or something?"

"It would appear that way," I said as I gestured towards the trees around us. "Come on, there's a path here, almost wide enough to be a road. Maybe there's a town or city near us."

Zach nodded. "Let's go."

We took off down the path, passing by the spring in the process, and Zach only spared a glance at it as the passed it by, deciding that we would investigate the bridge later.

This was certainly going to be one hell of an adventure.


	2. Chapter 2

The twilit skies were gone by the time that the two of us found a town. And by town, I mean more like a really small village. A couple of houses here and there, all made out of wood, were strewn about, almost as if they had been placed haphazardly by a child playing with toys. Well, at least the people who lived here probably didn't have a problem with it.

As my friend and I walked down the path, Zach was the first to talk;

"See that big building across the stream?" He nudged me and pointed, lifting his finger towards a large building. "If there was any sort of leader for the village, then we'd find him there." I nodded in agreement.

Hopefully the townsfolk would be able to assist us in preparing for this utter doom that was to befall the land, which due to the colored lights being particularly unhelpful, we still didn't know what we needed to do or how to help the land.

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe we can figure out where exactly we are, maybe get a map and some supplies." While I personally had no doubt in my personal survivability chances, we still needed supplies, maybe a fishing pole or a bow with arrows or something in order to hunt.

Zach nodded and we made our way to the large building. A couple of people were walking around here and there, taking little notice of us as we walked down the road, letting the townsfolk do their daily morning activities.

We approached the building, and knocked on the door. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the door opened slowly, revealing a portly man with an odd looking mustache.

"Hello there, how can I help the two of you?"

Zach and I looked at each other and Zach shrugged.

"Hello, my name's Russell, and this here is my friend Zach. We are travelers and we've run out of supplies, nor do we know the area. We were wondering if there was any place to stock up on things, and we figured that your building was the biggest, so it would probably be the best place to meet someone who could help us."

The large man looked at the two of us before smiling. "Pleasure to meet you Russ, Zach. The name's Bo; I'm the mayor of this village. You guys need supplies eh? Well Sera runs the shop in town, over that way yonder," He pointed at one building near the entrance to the town.

"If she doesn't have anything that you need, you can come back and talk to me, and I'll see if there's anything I can do to help you guys." He spread his arms, "Welcome to Ordon Village."

We thanked him and headed over to the store that he had pointed out to us. We entered the building and were greeted by a woman who was half leaning, half laying on the counter.

"Oh, newcomers?" The lady yawned. "We're not open yet… I'm just so upset about my cat." Zach perked up at the mention of the cat.

"Oh? What's wrong with your cat?" He asked the woman.

"My cat ran away this morning. I'm sure eventually he'll come back, but I haven't fed him any breakfast yet and then he took off before I could feed him."

"How about I help out with that?" Zach asked her. "I'll find your cat for you and bring him back to you."

The woman stopped leaning on the counter and perked up at the offer. "Oh would you? That's awfully kind of you to help a stranger."

Zach smiled. "I hav- had cats myself, and I know that I'd be worried if either of them ran away as well. Don't worry, the village is small, it can't have gotten too far."

We left the building. "Zach," I started. "Do we really have time to be looking for some lady's cat? Not that it isn't important to her but, she even said that he would eventually come back anyways."

Zach looked at me and gave me a smile. "It's the little things that matter Russell. Sure if we manage to somehow save the world, that'll give us some publicity, maybe a little fame and appreciation, but it's really the small acts of kindness that makes someone a Hero. Helping a lady find her cat, that's a small thing, easily looked over." He pointed past me as we walked, directing my attention to a cat that was watching a young kid try to fish at the pond.

"Looks like the kitty's hungry for some fish huh?" I smiled, Zach wasn't necessarily a nice person by nature, but when it came to animals he tended to have a soft spot. We made our way over to the kid, and after a little hassle involving Zach trying and failing to reel in some fishes for the cat, I finally made a catch and we ended up feeding the cat and brought it back to the shopkeeper.

"Oh, there's my boy!" She exclaimed as Zach placed the cat down on the counter. It instantly started lapping up the milk that she had laid out for it, and both Zach and I grinned at the sight.

"Thank you both so much for finding him, there must be something that I can do for you?"

"We need supplies; maybe if you have any travel backpacks. We're also going to need a map of the local area at the very least, we're not exactly from Hyrule and we weren't able to secure a map before coming."

Sera smiled at the two of us once more. "I've got just the things you two are looking for." She stood up from her seat and walked into the back of the shop. She came through the backdoor a minute later carrying two backpacks.

"These are for you. I took the liberty of putting some food and water inside them, as well as a spare change of clothes that was lying around. You'll find the map that you asked for is in one of the side pockets."

"We couldn't possibly accept all this." Zach said as I nudged him in between the ribs.

"Nonsense!" Sera exclaimed. "As much as I would like to believe that my cat would've come back by itself eventually, I don't actually believe that he would have. He's a very stubborn cat and we've been trying to feed him less; he's been getting a little fat. He hasn't been taking the lessened diet too well, and probably would've stayed out there until he was feasted on fish. Giving you guys a little food and some spare backpacks that nobody uses anymore is the least that I can do for the two of you!"

We thanked her and made our way outside. By this point in the day, the sun was high in the sky. A couple of kids ran into us. The oldest looked no older than eleven years old, another one was seven or eight, and the last looked like he could've been five.

"Hey sirs! Are you new here! My name's Talo! And this is my brother Malo, and our friend Beth! It's nice to meet you!"

The looked up at us expectantly. Zach turned to me and sighed, "I'll see you later, meet me by the entrance to the village come twilight if we haven't met back up by then." He walked off. I looked at the kids with a smirk on my face.

"It's nice to meet you guys." I said to the children. "The name's Russell, and my friend Zach and I are just passing through the town. What're you guys up to this fine day?"

The kids looked somewhat excited. "We just finally got a wooden play sword from the town blacksmith, Rusl. Now we're going to go play in the woods with it, show those monkeys who's the boss in the village." Talo said very animatedly, waving around the aforementioned wooden sword.

Rusl eh? His name was almost exactly like mine. That was a weird occurrence. "I'm in need of a sword, so maybe I'll go and check out his shop then." I told the kids. "Could you point me in his direction?"

They were happy to point his forge out for me, and once I got there I could tell that this was a man of integrity.

"Welcome," said a man with blond hair and no older than thirty years of age. "The name's Rusl, we don't get many travelers around these parts. What can I do for you? Looking to buy a blade, or perhaps have one fixed or sharpened?"

I extended a hand, which he shook in his own, before replying. "The name's Russ. My friend Zach and I are travelers and we don't currently have any means to defend ourselves on the road. If you have any suggestions…" I trailed off, watching as Zach walked in carrying an armful of Rupees.

"Hey Russ, look at what I found, just hiding under some rocks, too! Sera said that this is the currency of Hyrule, so I figured we'd need a lot of them." Rusl turned to Zach, and appraising the general worth of the Rupees, walked back into his forge before coming out with a plain looking broadsword.

"With the amount of Rupees you have there, I'd sell you two of these broadswords. Not too shabby, and they certainly need to be cleaned and kept for, but you could certainly do a lot worse, like simply buying a dagger or something like that."

He handed the sword over to me, and I gave it a couple of swings. It seemed almost a little heavy in my hand, but I also didn't have a lot of muscle, considering the lights gave me a brand new body. I made a 'not bad' face, and handed it over to Zach, who had given the Rupees over to Rusl. He also gave it a few practice swings and I was astounded by the ease that he swung the blade with. It was almost like it was made for him.

"This is very well made," acclaimed Zach. "It's weight is very well centered, allowing for primarily slashing techniques. How much did you say for one again?" He asked the blacksmith.

"For the amount of Rupees you gave me, I'll give you two of them, plus I'll throw in a wooden shield for free. It won't protect you much against fire, but it's been treated to withstand quite a lot of damage."

After a minute of him getting the things together, we purchased the two swords got the wooden shield, which we agreed that Zach should use, given that we both knew that he was going to be rushing into battle a lot more than I was.

We were walking toward the entrance to town when a small child with blond hair ran up to us and said, "You gotta help! Talo's been grabbed by monsters!"

I looked at Zach and he nodded, and we both broke into a run out of town.


	3. Chapter 3

Frankly, we had no idea where we were going. We had crossed the bridge near the spring, and after running through a small clearing, we passed yet another spring and kept going. We came across what appeared to be a crossroads. On direction led us to a clearing with a man sitting at a fire, and the other led through a dark tunnel.

We decided to approach the man and ask if he had seen Talo anywhere.

"Yo!" He said, practically throwing a lantern in my hands. "I'm selling lantern oil, and giving out free lanterns as a business strategy. Did you need to go through the dark tunnel over there? No problem with a trusty lantern!"

What a strange man, I thought to myself. "We're actually looking for a small child, around the age of eight or so, have you seen anybody like that come through here?"

"Hmm…" He rubbed his chin in contemplative though for a moment. "No, I don't think that I have seen any kids come through this area. Maybe he went through the tunnel?" I thanked him and Zach and I went on our way.

We walked to the entrance of the tunnel and went into it, swords in hand. We were pleasantly surprised that only a couple of large bats accosted us, but we quickly dispatched them with our blades. We finally came to an end to the tunnel and walked into the open area before us. Aside from a few giant trees that littered the area, there was seemingly no signs that Talo might've come through here.

At least that is, until the monsters came out of the woodworks. Two monsters, looking almost like gremlins jumped from a raised platform and made to attack us with what looked like sword sized cleavers. Zach and I jumped back before attacking back while they lifted their weapons. A few strikes of our swords left them badly wounded before they disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"That was weird." Zach said. "You would think that they would just die like a normal creature, but they just vanished in the smoke."

I nodded. "We'll have to be careful, who knows what other kinds of monsters we'll encounter in this world filled with magic."

We pressed on, fighting through the occasional monster or two before coming across a locked gate that a couple of monsters were defending. Searching for another couple of minutes or two yielded a kay that we used to unlock the gate. We ran forward and came across a group of four monsters surrounding a bird, and quickly dispatched them from behind.

"Squak!" it said, "You guys look competent! Come try my potion, I've got a health potion, as well as oil for you lantern! Just dip a bottle in and pay the amount it costs in the box." We didn't have any bottles on us at the time so we went on our way.

Across the area rested a large tree, and from the entrance came a large root that ended on the edge of a cliff near us, with a worn out path clearly visible on the root. We made our way across the root, careful to go one at a time and took in the scene before us. A couple more monsters were walking around, almost lazily while a monkey and Talo were stuck in a wooden cage.

I nodded to Zach, signaling that we ought to move forward, and we caught the monsters off guard and took them out. "Help! Break us out of here!" Talo's voice came as the last monster exploded into smoke.

We made quick work of the wooden trap, and even though the monkey fled the scene, Talo came with us to the entrance of the forest area, back to the dark tunnel. Once we were through it, Talo said to us, "Thanks sirs, I'll head right home now. That monkey tried to save me, and it got captured trying to help. I'll be off then, and please don't tell my parents about this!" Then he ran off in the direction of the village.

A few seconds later, Rusl came from the direction that the Lantern oil salesman was still seated at his campfire. "I came to help bring Talo back, but it looks like the two of you got him before I even got here. I can't thank the two of you enough for what you've done here." He looked at the darkening sky.

"Come, let's get back to town and I'll treat you two to dinner and let you sleep at my house tonight, as thanks for saving Talo. It'll be dark soon, and monsters thrive in the darkness." Zach and I accepted his offer, and walked back to the village with him.

We ate dinner with Rusl and his wife, Uli, a pregnant woman who we congratulated, and their son Colin, the blond haired boy that had told us that Talo had been captured by monsters. While we ate, we thanked Colin for his levelheadedness in coming to get help from adults instead of trying to take the monsters on by themselves.

Once we were done, Rusl showed us a guest bedroom that they had in their house and let us sleep in there for the night.

The following morning, Zach and I got our things together. Aside from the backpacks that Sera had given us, along with a couple of provisions like food and water, as well as the lantern and the swords that we had bought, we didn't have much in the way of supplies. But we figured that it would at least be enough before we finally found the next town.

We left the town at noon, with the sun high in the sky when we saw them. A different type of monsters, a breed that we hadn't seen before, came rampaging on huge boars across the bridge. A few of them stampeded into the springs, and yet more rode passed us, shooting blunted arrows at us as they went by. The arrows hit Zach and I with such force that we doubled over, and we couldn't help but watch as the monsters raided the village.

They set no fires to the houses, but we watched as they took all of the children hostage, dragging them upon their boars and leaving the town with them. We heard the sound of a horn sound, and in the sky above the spring came a dark and swirling portal. Nothing came out of it, but neither did it disappear, hanging in the sky overhead ominously, as if to let more monsters come out at any point in time. We saw the Mayor's daughter Beth, and well as Rusl's kid get dragged from the springs, and the monsters grouped up and rode back across the bridge, disappearing in between the mountainside path.

As soon as I was able to stand, I grabbed Zach's hand and pulled him to his feet.

"This has got to be the darkness that the lights were telling us about." Zach said. "We have to go and save those kids." I nodded, and we took off in the direction that the monsters had taken the kids. We ran across the bridge, only to stop short as we came across a huge wall of darkness, fringed with an eerie orange glow, orange runes dancing on the surface. The wall extended all the way up into the sky, as far as our eyes could see.

This was the darkness that we were sent here to combat. But looking up at that wall, I had no idea how we were going to fight something that looked as though it was going to kill us if we tried to touch it?

We were left with no choice, however, as two giant hands reached out from the wall and grabbed both Zach and I, before yanking us through the wall.

A putrid scent hit my nostrils as I came face to face with a blackened demon, clearly one of the monsters that we were meant to destroy. It held us in its hands before a light shown from Zach's hand, blinding the beast. I had no idea what was happening, but as the beast dropped us, I thought that we might have a fighting chance against it.

Or at least, that was before the blinding pain racked my body. My back, my legs, my face and my arms all hurt with the pain of a thousand suns. Forget the car crash that had gotten me into this situation; my whole body felt as if it were compressing on itself, my bones felt as though they were bending and breaking, my sinews moving to accommodate the new skeletal structure of my body. My mind blacked out from the pain and stress, and I knew no more.


	4. Chapter 4

I woke up on the hard ground. Gods, was my mind foggy. I shook my head, trying to get rid of my clouded thoughts and mind. I tried to move my arms, but I felt incredibly weird about it. My eyes opened, and I took in the sight around me.

Stone bricks and metal bars, it appeared that I was in a prison of some sort. A metal chain attached one of my furred legs to the ground- furred legs?

I looked down upon myself. It appears that I'm covered in white fur, with black rosette spots covering them. My arms seemed to have been replaced by forelegs, and it appeared that I had been turned into some sort of quadruped animal. I opened my mouth, a small yowl coming out. Maybe I had become some kind of cat? A jaguar or a panther perhaps?

Whatever I was, Zach was nowhere to be seen, and given the random addition of gloominess to the air of the dungeon, the darkness had probably turned both him and I into some sort of animal. I needed to get out of this prison. I tried to break the metal chain with force, no dice. It wouldn't be big enough to slip around my newfound enormous paw, that's for sure.

I tried to gnaw at the iron, feeling pretty silly with myself as nothing happened. Of course my teeth weren't going to cut through the metal, it's not like they were made out of diamonds.

A light giggle came from outside of the bars. I dropped the chain in my mouth and crouched, looking over in the direction of the sound. Another creature, this one looking quite impish stood there. It had some sort of strange stone helmet on top of its head. Its whole body was a swirl of black and white, with light teal markings glowing in the appearance of tattoos.

It smirked, and leapt into the cell. "I found you!" It said. I growled lightly at this strange creature. It didn't look dissimilar to the black creature that had pulled Zach and I through the wall, and I wasn't sure that the creature in front of me wasn't about to attack me.

"Oh, aren't you scary!" It said more than asked upon hearing my growl, as if toying with me. it wasn't as if I was going to be able to attack it from where I was, it had hopped right out of my range of movement.

"Are you sure that you want to be doing that? Snarling and glaring at me?" It paused, and when I continued my growl, it continued with, "Well, that's too bad… I was planning on helping you, if you were nice." It smiled at me, a glint in the one eye that was visible to me, it's other eye covered by the stone helmet.

I stopped my growl. If it had been going to attack me, then it wouldn't have bothered engaging in idle small talk, it would have just attacked, maybe used some magic power to blow me into a million pieces or something.

"Eee hee! That's much better! You humans are obedient to a fault, aren't you?" How was stopping my growling considered obedience? If me stopping my growling was being nice, and being nice was what was needed in order for the strange creature to help me, then logic says that I stop growling in order to get help, right? I didn't need to think too hard into this.

"Although…" It continued, looking pensive for a moment before tapping my snout, "You really aren't a human anymore, are you? You're a beast! Eee hee!" I glared at the creature, but didn't do anything. Clearly it was looking for some sort of rise out of me as it smiled. It took a couple of steps back and raised its hands in front of it, gathering some sort of energy before releasing it at me, breaking the chain that linked me to the floor.

I recoiled for a moment, thinking that it might have attacked me before I realized that it had in fact unbound me from the floor. "You look kind of surprised! Eee hee hee!" It jumped into the air, gliding backwards. "I bet you're wondering where we are? Well," it phased through the bar as if they were made of water and continued, "I'll make you a deal. If you can get over here, maybe I'll tell you!"

It smirked at me and gave a yawn before giggling once more. I looked around the cell, trying to see if there was any way out of it. The metal bars were tightly knit together, and since I was now a cat I might be able to squeeze my way through; but I could very easily get myself stuck. There appeared to be a broken wooden box in the corner, and I got the feeling that I could easily break it if I tried.

What could I do to break it? My teeth are in fact very sharp, they could be used to maybe chew through something, but not a wooden box. My claws came out, and I knew that I could rip the skin from an animal's hide with them. My tail felt powerful, powerful enough that I could smash something if I were able to whip it around fast enough. Maybe I could-

A crash could be heard as I spun on the spot, my tail breaking through the box as though a knife through butter. It crumpled into pieces, leaving an empty space in its wake, allowing me to see the broken bars and a hole in the metal. It was just big enough for me to properly squeeze myself through, much bigger than the space in between the bars.

I dug at the ground, feeling the loose dirt move around my paws as I made the hole wide enough for me to exit the prison cell. As I wiggled my way out, I became aware of the fact that the imp was no longer around. I pushed forward, freeing myself completely. Then I felt a THUMP on my back, and I jumped probably five feet in the air trying to knock whatever it was off before I realize that the creature had latched itself to me, holding onto my fur.

"Calm down," It said, and when I stopped moving it patted my head. "It looks like you aren't completely stupid after all!" It leaned down and scratched behind my ears. "Listen, I like you, so I think that I'll get you out of here. Plus we have to go and find your friend with the shiny hand too! But in exchange for my help, you have to do exactly what I say! If you need anything from me, just ask. So we're all good, then let's go!" at this it smacked my back, signaling that I ought to move onwards.

What a presumptuous creature. I mean, it did break my chains, so I figured that I would follow its lead for now. I walked around and found a side passageway out of my area of the dungeons, leading to an open area. Immediately to my right there was a glowing orb.

"Oh?" The imp inquired. "Isn't that funny. Eee hee hee! Want to see something interesting? You're a beast now, just hone your beast senses and poke around!"

Beast senses? What on earth was she talking about? Although… I could feel it. Something about the way I was looking at the world, like I was still viewing the world as a human. I could feel the wild cat inside of me, clawing to get out, to take control. My eyes slitted, and my vision darkened, creating a atmosphere of chaos. But in that chaos, I could understand the glowing orb for what it was, for I saw the outline of a soldier, holding a spear.

"I can't run any farther, that's enough right, I'm safe here? What was that noise, don't come any closer!"

I tried to touch the light, but my snout went right through him. As I walked away, the imp piped up.

"That was a spirit. the people of the land of light can't exist as they are in the twilight, so if you come across any more spirits, just hone your beast senses to listen to them, who knows what you can find out!"

I walked some more, before realizing that we were in some sort of sewer system. As I made my way down, I came across an inky black creature the size of a rat. As soon as it noticed me, it lunged, and my newfound animal instincts allowed me to grab it out of the air with my teeth and rip it to shreds. It also dissolved in a puff of smoke, and I was beginning to understand that creatures of darkness might not have a tie to the world as I understand it. Maybe there was some other realm that they were coming from?

As I made my way through, I raised the water flow to swim over some spikes and lowered it back down to make my way towards the exit. A couple of spirits were found along the way, but they simply cowered in fear of the black monsters that I dispatched. A single thought rose to my mind; where's Zach? If he had been in the dungeons, then the imp would've had me free him. Unless he wasn't in the dungeons, or unless the imp was lying about taking me to him and simply wanted to bring me into a trap.

As it jumped back on my back; it had gotten off to show me where to go, it said, "Where might we be? All of the spirits that we've passed seem to be soldiers? Well let's get out of here, ok?"

We walked a few paces and I found that we had entered a circular staircase, with parts of the stairwell crumbling from disuse or the decay from the magic that seemed to enshroud the land. I made my way up the stairs, careful to jump on ledges, luckily it seemed that I was able to jump fairly high, and tightrope walking across a particularly far jump instead of risking the long fall.

We made our way into an open room, and after taking down a couple of bats, I jumped to a couple of ledges and found an open window above a sealed door.

I walked outside, revealing dark skies that rained down on both the imp and I. We appeared to be in some sort of castle, although as a non-native, I had no idea where that might be in the world, it wasn't as if I had opened the map to look at it yet.

The imp stretched out its arms. "My my, would you look at the sky! Isn't the black cloud of twilight looking simply beautiful today? Do you know where we are yet? No? Well anyways, there's someone I want to introduce you to… but I'll need you to go to that tower over there in order to do it!"

A spirit was standing there, cowering in the rain. "Our poor Hyrule Castle, what has become of it? and those dark, sinister birds…" I looked out over the rooftops, and sure enough, there were some black birds that spiraled above, just waiting for someone or something to challenge it.

I leapt from rooftop to rooftop; taking down the inky black birds one by one. Luckily, my beast form knew how to hunt, how to lung into the air to take down prey, and I used those skills to take down the flying birds. As I made my way over to the tower that the creature on my back had pointed out, I couldn't help but wonder who the imp would want me to meet. I was almost expecting at this point for the whole ordeal to be a trap, but then it probably wouldn't have freed me by breaking the chains, and would have just opened the lock with a key. Speaking of which, part of the shackle was still around my front paw.

I walked into the tower that it had pointed out to me, and went up the spiral staircase and entered the room at the top. Inside was a bed and a fireplace, as well as a cloaked figure talking to a wolf at the window.

A wolf? Could it be? "Zach!" I said, not knowing how on earth the meow that came out of my mouth sounded like a person's name to me. The wolf turned to me and gave a toothy grin.

"Russell, is that you? Sporting the snow leopard huh?" Snow leopard was I? Well at least it was something strong, and not a weak animal like a mouse.

"And you're a wolf, how'd that happen?"

The cloaked figure dropped her hood. "Midna, I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

The imp smirked. "You remembered my name! What an honor for me!"

"So," The woman said, "These are the ones that you were searching for."

"They're not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess they'll do."

The woman leaned down, looking at my still shackled paw. "You were imprisoned?" I nodded in affirmation. "I am sorry."

Midna interrupted. "They have no idea where they are or what's going on, so why don't you explain what you've managed to do? You owe them that much at least, Twilight Princess!"

The woman looked a little sad, and begun her tale.

"Listen carefully, this was once the land of Hyrule, the land where the power of the gods was said to slumber. But that blessed kingdom has been transformed by the king that rules the twilight. It has been turned into a realm of shadows, filled with creatures that shun the light."

She explained how show was the princess of the land, and how the black monsters came out of nowhere, killing guards left and right as a man with a horrid cloak and mask came forth, demanding that she either surrender the kingdom to him or that she and her subjects would die. To her, it was a simple choice of surrender, she would rather everyone in Hyrule stay living and fall into darkness than have the entire land slaughtered. And so, twilight enshrouded the land, and without light, the people became as spirits.

And now, as spirits, they live on, unaware of anything but the nameless fear that is the world around them, unaware that they cannot change their destinies by themselves.

For some odd reason, only she, Princess Zelda, and the two of us, Zach and I, were not turned into spirits as far as she knew.

"Don't be so sad!" Midna piped up. "We actually find it quite livable, I mean, is perpetual twilight really all that bad?"

"Midna," The princess said, "This isn't a time for levity, the shadow beasts have been searching far and wide for you. And for what reason?"

Midna shrugged. "Why indeed? You tell me!" And she cackled again, leaving little question in my mind that the imp was just as much a fugitive as I was to the twilit creatures.

The princess looked at Zach and me. "Time has grown short, the guard will soon make his rounds, you would do well to leaves before he makes his appearance. You must leave, quickly."

Zach followed me out of the room, and we exited the window that we had entered.

"So…" drawled Midna. "A promise is a promise, so I guess that I'll return you to the place where you first fumbled into the twilight. But are you sure that you should be going back? Are you sure that you aren't forgetting anything important?"

Images of the children that we kidnapped swam before my vision before I could help it, and I knew that Zach and I needed to save them.

"Well, I'd be happy to help you save them," said the imp in front of us. "But well, you'd have to be my servents, and like servants, you'd have to do exactly as I say! Why don't you go back, take a little time, and give it some thought?"

Suddenly, Zach and I had been teleported back to the spring, where the ominous black portal overhead hung in the sky still. So that's what it was for, the twilight creatures could teleport to it at will.

"Oh, and there's one more thing," Midna's voice said. "Though you've returned to the world of light, you haven't transformed back into your former selves, and you won't anytime soon! Eee hee hee!"


	5. Chapter 5

We stalked away from the spring. Zach eyed me and grinned.

"So, I guess we're a pair of animals for the moment? I wonder how we're going to get out of this."

"I dunno," I responded. "If I were to venture a guess, I would presume that we have to purge ourselves of the magic that transformed us. Unfortunately, we have no idea how to go about doing that, Twilight magic is unknown to the habitants of Hyrule. We know that the Twilight realm normally turns monsters into spirits, the real question is why we got turned into animals."

Zach nodded. "Maybe we should just keep moving onwards for the moment. As far as I'm concerned, we dropped our backpacks and weapons when we entered the Twilight. We should see if we can recollect them."

We walked towards the bridge and crossed it, walking up to the giant wall that still hung in the sky. Neither our backpacks nor our weapons were lying on the ground. The villagers must have come by and picked them up, thinking us taken or dead.

"Oi!" A familiar voice yelled out. My shadow split in two at my feet, and a shadowy image of Midna flew out in front of us. "Did you think that I just left? Listen, you aren't just going to be able to run off and save those kids. Last time, a shadow beast pulled you through the curtain of twilight, but if you want to go that way, you're going to need cooperation of someone from the twilight, like me! And right now, I want a sword and a shield that'll suit me, or else I won't take you across, understand me?" And with that, she disappeared back into my shadow.

What a bitch. I mean, she did essentially have us there. We wouldn't necessarily get lucky enough for another of the twilit beasts to bring us into the twilight shrouded lands of Hyrule. We got incredibly lucky the first time, although lucky isn't necessarily the best word to use. But without her help, we weren't going to get anywhere as far as saving Hyrule.

Better to do what she wanted for now. Luckily, we had already planned to recollect our gear, which included our swords and Zach's shield. We made our way towards the village, and there were a few monsters here and there, patrolling the area. We snuck up on them, biting them and clawing at them, and they exploded into smoke.

When we took out the monsters directly outside the village limits, a squirrel approached us. "Thanks for taking care of those bad guys!" It squeaked. "They made both the village and the forest a mess, kidnapped all the village children. But I know that you two aren't with the monsters. I can tell because you smell like humans, not like those monsters. If you run into any trouble, try talking to the other animals, we understand each other, so you'll be all right!" It scurried off after telling us that.

"So it seems like the animals are willing to help us at least." Zach said. "But we would be incredibly lucky if the humans were to trust us. We currently are huge predators. Forget the fact that a snow leopard doesn't live in this part of the world. These humans have just had their children taken away by monsters riding on armored boars. A huge cat and a wolf entering town will just make them think that the monsters are attacking all over again."

I nodded in agreement. "We should stay away from the townsfolk as much as possible. They'll just try and attack us, or worse, go and get the other villagers and they'll drive us out of town before we can get any of our things."

We walked into town. A man stood in the middle of the village. "Please!" he cried out into the air. "Please say that nothing has happened to the children… Please forgive your good for nothing father…" He sighed.

We made our way around him, careful to avoid being seen. "We should split up." I said to Zach. "We'll cover more ground and maybe get more information that way. We can meet up at the entrance of town later or as soon as we see each other."

Zach nodded, and we split up.

"So those poor young men are nowhere to be found?" My ears picked up at this information, and I hid in the grass nearby, using my natural leopard instincts to remain as quiet as possible.

"No," A new voice sounded, and soon I was cognizant of footsteps approaching along the roadside. "I found their backpacks and weapons at the giant black wall. Either they're dead, or with our kids." The footsteps were right next to me, and I looked through the grass to see. Rusl walked past, talking to the mayor of the town.

The mayor's voice rang out once more. "It's a pity that we don't know what happened to them, perhaps we could have asked for their aid in defending the city. At least if they're with our children then they'll stay safe."

Rusl nodded. "If we ever find them, I'll be sure to give them back their things; I'm holding them in my house for the time being." The two of them stalked off, Rusl holding his own weapon in hand as a precaution against any monsters that they might come across.

So their gear was in Rusl's house?

"How nice!" Midna giggled. "Their keeping your things for you, on the off chance you ever come back. Well, since you're back, you might as well grab your things! Eee hee!"

She had a point. Even if all we had was a map and some food and water, at least those meager supplies would be a benefit on the road. Plus, our weaponry is probably also with our backpacks. I stealthily made my way up to Rusl's house, careful not to let anybody see me.

I didn't know how I was going to get inside though. The door would most likely be locked, and Uli stood in front of the door, making sure to scan the area. I walked around the side of the house, and saw a chicken.

"Hey Sir! Sir! Sir! You trying to get in the house?" It cawed to me. "Well there's a small spot here, see, that you can squeeze under and get in the house."

I thanked the chicken and burrowed into the house. This was work more suited for a dog, or a wolf, in Zach's case. Large cats hadn't evolved to be digging very often. But I made my way inside, and quickly found our gear, including both backpacks and the swords and shield.

"Wow!" Midna's voice quipped, "You two sure were planning on going on an adventure, weren't you!"

I lightly growled at her, before collecting our things and exiting back the way we came. I ran to the town entrance, where I found Zach pacing around.

"I found our gear; Rusl was keeping them for us so I snuck in his house and get it all."

"Alright, so now that we have our weaponry, including two swords and a shield, you should have no problem with bringing us back into the twilight, right Midna?" Zach asked.

"Yup!" she said, coming out of my shadow. "We're all set, let's go to the wall and make this thing happen."

As we ventured forth, we heard a strange voice come from the spring. "Come… to my spring." It beckoned. I shrugged my leopard shoulders, not sure how, and walked into the spring. "You have… been transformed… by the power of shadows… Come to me." I walked forwards, and suddenly, dark spires fell from the sky, and a strange light shown between the spires. I understood instantly; I was trapped. Zach stood beside me, his hackles raised.

"Beware," came the voice. "A creature of shadows… approaches."

And suddenly, from the portal high above came a monster, of the same kind that had initially brought Zach and I through the veil of Twilight.

Zach lunged for it, and I followed suit. In our animal forms, our claws flashing and our sharp teeth digging into it, it stood barely a chance to fight back. If it was sentient, it clearly hadn't expected that we would be strong enough to take it down, nor would we be brave enough to try.

As soon as it died, vanishing into smoke, the smoke raised to the portal above, turning it a teal and black instead of purple and black.

As soon as this was done, the spring began to glow, the stones shining white with power as a light came up from the depths of the spring. It grew until it took on the shape of a large ram; complete with large horns and hooves and everything, yet made of light.

"Oh brave youths, I am one of the four lights spirits that protect Hyrule at the behest of the gods.. I am Ordona. The black beast you slayed was a shadow being, it had come to seize the power of light that I wield. My brethren in Hyrule have already had their light stolen from them, the entirety of Hyrule falling into a netherworld for the creatures of twilight, and they will not stop at just Hyrule, they will overtake the entire world of light. To save this land from the king of Twilight, the lost light must be recovered. The three light spirits that have lost their light must be revived."

It paused, before continuing. "There are but two who can revive them, and redeem this land… the two of you, who are not turned to spirits in the land of darkness. You still have not discovered your true powers. Those transformed by twilight cannot usually recover their original forms, unless if you were to return to faron woods where you were first transformed, if you were to revive a light spirit there, by the power of the light spirit, you may find the means to regain your state of being."

It slowly disappeared, which was entirely unhelpful, I had some questions that I wanted to ask it! And yet, it was no longer visible to either Zach or I. Extremely unhelpful… and yet, my wounds on my back seemed to heal, and I felt refreshed. The spring waters must have healing properties now that we've aided the spirit that resides here. That might be useful information in the future.

We left the spring. "So," Zach said. "We free the other spirits, or revive them somehow, and we not only purge the land of twilight but also get our humanity back? That's what I go from that thing."

I nodded. "It would appear that our journey into the darkness is like killing two birds with one stone then, get our normal bodies back and save the world, sounds like fun."

We made our way across the bridge, back to the wall of Twilight. Midna jumped out of my shadow as we got near.

"Hey… Look. The Faron woods that you might know from before, they're now covered in twilight. You might not be able to come back here, but… Do you two still want to go?" Zach and I looked at each other briefly before nodding our heads towards the imp.

Midna nodded and entered the wall, before a giant glowing orange hands reached out from inside and grabbed both of use and pulled us through.


	6. Chapter 6

We were back in the land of Hyrule that had been enshrouded on Twilight. Dark specks of something filled the air, and the atmosphere seemed entirely gloomy. Midna, back in its normal form, as opposed to being a shadow, jumped back on my back. It pulled out the shield, and one of the swords. I put the shield on its face and swung around the sword a couple of times.

"Hmm! So these are the weapons of your world? Do you really think that this thing can slay the creatures of twilight?" It tossed the shield and sword on the ground near my feet.

"Well, I won't use these, but I'll hang onto them for you!" It snapped its fingers, and the swords, the shield and both of our backpacks disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Alright, a promise is a promise, I trust you enough to help you guys out." It leaned forward, towards my ear, making me slightly uneasy for a moment. "In exchange for my help though, I need you guys to gather some things for me. Look, I can't tell you all the details just yet, but it'll be easy, trust me. But enough of that for now, do you hear that noise?"

A low sound permeated the air, allowing me to hear a song that itched of sadness. "It's the lamentation of the spirit that had its light stolen. Where in the world could it be? Eee hee! Better get going, don't you think? Don't blame me for this world's fate if you don't hurry up and find that light!"

We moved forward through the gloom, when suddenly another portal appeared above us, dropping three of those black beasts from before.

"Aw, we're penned in again! No use taking them down one at a time, right, you can take them down all at once! So, you can handle this by yourselves, right? Good luck, bye!" And the imp flew off to the trees above, watching the two of us. We easily took down one of them, and then the second one down soon after, but then our ears flinched as an ungodly sound broke out from the third one. The two that we had thought to be downed stood up once more and came back at us.

"What's the holdup?" Midna asked, coming back down. "If you leave that last one alive, it's just going to shriek and bring the others back alive. All you have to do is hold your ground, right? You have an energy field about you guys, and by holding, you'll charge it up, making it bigger. Once all three of the monsters are in the field, you can release your energy and take them all down super quick!"

I nodded, and lowered myself. This was the same feeling I got when I prepared to do something very quickly, almost like a killing blow of sorts. And suddenly, probably because I was a beast, I was able to see it. Darkness expanded out from me, growing in size till it encompassed all three of the shadow beasts, who were clumped up together. I understood instantly; with the energy I had amassed, I could just tear through all three of them.

And so I did, I lunged forward. Speed was my name as I zipped through the air, punching my way cleanly through the first one, landing behind the others, before launching myself once more, dispatching them all with ease in under a second. They puffed into smoke, and the smoke went up to the portal above, also turning the purple on it into teal. I wonder what was up with that. Maybe it was a way for the twilight beasts to know that it was unsafe to teleport to that spot, and they shouldn't go there without lots of reinforcements? I was just speculating.

"Nice job," Zach said. "That was really cool, how you just took them all down so quickly."

I smiled, "I'll let you take on the next group that we fight, how about that." He laughed, and we made our way forwards.

The second spring was close at hand, as I remembered, but there was a distorted light that hovered about it in the twilight.

It cried out to us. "Please be careful… these woods have changed… The dark clouds of dusk cover this land… the drape of shadows is called… twilight. In this twilight, those that live in the light… become as spirits… it is a place… where that dark ones and evil creatures dwell… I am, was, a spirit of light. Grey eyed beast and blue eyed beast. Look for my light… retrieve that light stolen from the dark beasts, and keep it in this vessel."

It hovered to us something that looked almost like a grapevine.

"In the shadows of twilight, the dark insects are as… invisible… as normal beings are here… let me use the last of my power… to reveal the locations of the dark insects that have consumed the light…" I was filled with knowledge of the area, and suddenly I understood where the monsters were.

"Find the insects of darkness, and take back the light."

We made our way through the area. A couple of monsters plants stood in our way here and there, but we took them down. Each bug only needed one bite to kill, and the light they dropped filled on of the rob slots on the vessel that the spirit had given us. We went inside the lantern guys house, killing the bugs that were terrorizing him. We went through the tunnel, which given our animal sight made it way easier to see through. Upon coming to the open area, however, we were surprised to see it filled with purple smog. We quickly decided that we shouldn't go near it, and jumped our way across tree trunks and rocks, killing most of the remaining bugs.

Upon going into the next area, once more we were pinned with black spires and a portal that dropped black monsters to us, but this time Zach gave a wolfish grin as he learned how to use his own energy field to take down the monsters.

We came across the monkey that had helped Talo the other day, and it was being terrorized by the remaining two bugs. After taking care of them, it looked around, before speaking. "Did someone help me?" it inquired, looking around. "I'm lucky, ever since boss has gone crazy; monsters have invaded the woods and are everywhere. The village children were taken through the woods for who knows what reason." It jumped away, and we collected the last vestiges of light in the vessel.

We returned to the spring, and upon offering the vessel to the spirit, the land returned to light, the twilight quickly fading. Midna's form turned back into shadow, and it leapt from me back and hovered in front of us.

"Aww, but it was so nice here in the twilight… What's so great about a world of light, anyways? Eee hee hee, see you later!" And it disappeared back into my shadow. The spirit rose up from the spring. This time however, the spirit that came from the spring took the form of a giant monkey, instead of a ram. It appeared that perhaps the spirits were all representative of different kinds of animals.

"My name is Faron. I protect this forest as one of the spirits who guard Hyrule. In the darkness, where people roam as spirits, you two were transformed into beasts of darkness. That was a sign, a sign that the powers of the chosen one rest within your two, and that they are awakening."

We really already knew some of this, there were a bunch of lights that brought us here in the first place after all. They had already told us that we had to save the land.

"Look at your awakened forms…"

And suddenly, we were back in our human forms. We were both wearing normal looking clothes, although Zach's shirt was a teal like blue, and my shirt was a bright a vibrant red.

"The tunics that have become your garb once belonged to the ancient hero chosen by the gods. His power is yours his is the true power that has slept within you two. Your names are Russell and Zachary, and you are the heroes chosen by the gods. Brave youths, a dark power rests in the temple deep in these woods.

It is a forbidden power. Long, long ago, I and the other spirits of light locked it away. Because of its nature, it is a power that should never be touched by any who dwell in the light. But this world weeps beneath a mantle of shadows, and so there is no choice, you must match the power of the king of shadows. If you would seek this power, proceed to the temple in the forest depths, there you shall find it."

It disappeared, leaving the two of us. Midna jumped out of my shadow.

"Well well, looks like you guys are chosen heroes and all that jazz, huh? So that's why you got turned into beasts! What a shame, I mean; maybe you'd rather just wander as a spirit like the rest of them. Totally unaware of what was happening for all eternity, right? Eee hee! So, what do you want to do? Do you want to head to that temple? Well, isn't that convenient! I was about to head there myself. Look, you want to help those kids, right? The way I see it, maybe they're in that temple, waiting for you to rescue them. Well good luck, misters Important Heroes!" And at that, Midna disappeared back into my shadow.

I looked at Zach, to see what he thought of the situation. "What about you?" I asked him. "What do you think that we should do?"

He looked pensive for a moment, before making up his mind. "I say we go in the temple, and if the bad guys are in there holding the kids hostage, we give them a taste of our steel." He raised his sword slightly, and I could tell that he wanted to show the monsters who the boss was around here.

I nodded and grinned. We made our way forward into the woods. The gate was still locked from earlier, so we headed over to where the lantern guy was now sitting around the fire.

"Hey! It's been getting dangerous around these parts, so I locked up the woods over there." He looked us up and down. "I see that you guys are properly geared up now, with swords and stuff. Here," He said, giving us the key. "You guys can go in since you seem intent on going on in. Just make sure that you bring your lantern, there's a big fog in there that has blanketed the ground."

We thanked him and went on our way. After unlocking the gate and going through the tunnel, we came across the fogged area once more. I took out my lantern, and a monkey came out from the side and tried to knock it out of my hands! Luckily I wasn't a punk, so I had a tight grip on it. The monkey looked a little disappointed, and then we entered a game of charades where it tried to explain to me that the fog wouldn't go away unless I waved the lantern around in circles.

So Zach, me, and the monkey made our way through the fog, slowly cutting down the monsters that hid in the fog and clearing it away bit by bit so we could walk through. Eventually we made our way to the other side, and the monkey hopped off in the direction of the giant tree, so we decided to follow it.

When we approached the giant tree, we noticed that the monkey had seemingly disappeared. At the bottom of the giant root that led up, however, lay a golden wolf, waiting for Zach and me. When we got near, it leapt at Zach, and the world around both of us faded.

When we came to, we were in a world filled with light. The Golden Wolf stood behind us, and suddenly turned into a skeletal warrior. It readied its weapons, and I raised my sword as Zach raised his own sword and shield. Nothing happened at first, so I swung at the skeleton, and it blocked with its own shield before knocking me down.

"A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage. You may be destined to become the heroes of legend...but your current power would disgrace the proud colors of the hero's tunics you wear. You must use your courage to seek power...and find it you must. Only then will you become the heroes for whom this world despairs."

What an odd message. It was almost like this skeleton was a teacher to guide us, after all it had taken the form of a wolf, which is the beast that Zach had turned into.

"The first art that I shall teach you two is the ending blow! When you have knocked your opponent to the ground, sometimes it will still find the strength to stand back up and fight. When you find an enemy on the ground, you must jump on it, and drive your blade deep into its body, ending the beast's life. Now come at me!"

We both spent a few minutes, sparring with the skeleton warrior, until we had both learned how to use the technique properly.

"And so, you've learnt the skill. The first hidden skill, the ending blow, has been passed on! These skills are only for the ones that carry the blood of heroes, the ones whose spirits are that of the sublime beasts. Grow powerful. Test your courage. And when you find that you need another skill to overcome the threats that face you… Search for the statues that howl with the sound of the wind. Seek the sound that calls to the spirit of the beasts to awaken me again. A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage. Remember those words… Farewell!"

And the world of light faded away. We woke back up in the woods, no time seeming to have passed at all. Zach and I looked briefly at each other and smiled. We would be unlocking abilities to fight with, certainly an interesting turn of events, but welcome nonetheless. We began walking towards the tree, time to see what this item that the light should not wield is once and for all.


	7. Chapter 7

We entered the tree, which had an opening that had been covered in a giant spider web. Upon entering, we saw a monster harassing the monkey that we had brought through the fog. We made quick work of the monster, and the monkey quickly launched itself up on a platform that had a ladder and began calling us.

"I think she wants us to follow her," Zach said, and I couldn't help but agree.

We climbed the ladder and made our way up to the door that was on the platform. When we went through it, the monkey followed us, and we were able to see the expansive area before us. Another platform was raised in the middle of the area, and when we approached it, a huge spider dropped from the ceiling, and we tried to kill it, but it had some hard defenses that our swords couldn't penetrate.

We backed off, and the spider followed us, intent on attacking. When it raised its legs in the air, seemingly about to attack, I caught a glimpse of its unprotected underside and quickly struck with my sword, slicing open its stomach.

It fell to the ground and exploded in a puff of smoke. Seems that not all creatures of twilight just die into smoke then, but monsters in general? This could be potentially useful information. We stood on the platform, but we had no idea how to continue. There were four torch sconces on the platform, as well as two side paths that we couldn't take due to the fact that there were no bridges, only thin wires leading to the sides. Unlit fire sconces eh?

I took out my lantern and lit the sconces one by one, until all four were lit. As soon as they were, a bridge was lifted, allowing us to move forward. We found a chest off to the side which held a dungeon map. The areas that we had gone to already were filled in, while the rest of the areas were darkened.

We went through the doorway, and came across a bridge, where we saw another monkey, this one white, as well as bigger than the other one. It threw what looked to be a boomerang that cut through the ropes of the bridge, knocking them down. The monkey beside us started gesturing that we follow it. Back in the main hall, it brought us to one of the sides, and jumped on the rope above, hanging upside down and clapping its hands.

I grinned to myself, when in the woods, do as the monkeys do I guess, am I right? I ran at the edge of the platform and jumped towards the monkey, feeling it grab my hands for a moment and swing me towards the other side before letting go, allowing me to safely land. Just monkey business.

Zach followed almost immediately afterwards, and we headed to the next room. There was water at the bottom, and we made our way across, heading through the room until the monkey brought us to a locked door. We'd need the key. We searched and left the room until we found the key a few rooms over before coming back. In the locked room was another monkey in a cage, placed on top of a totem pole.

Zach and I shoved against the totem pole and knocked it over, freeing the monkey. Unfortunately a bunch of monsters jumped into the area, but our steel quickly bit into them and we made our way out. We went through the rest of the dungeon, freeing as many monkeys as possible. We even beat up some giant plant thing along the way, which was a pain due to its. Hopefully that's as large as it gets.

Once we had four, they led us back through the main hall to where the bridge had collapses, and they made a line to swing from one to the next. Zach and I got to the other side. Clearly some monkey smackdown was about to happen with the big white monkey and its boomerang.

The white monkey threw its boomerang through the air, cutting two plant monsters loose from the ceiling. Zach looked at me and I nodded, he would take care of the monkey, and I would take care of the plants that it cut from the ceiling. As I defended Zach, he continuously bowled into the pillars that the white monkey was on after it threw its boomerang, making it unable to catch the boomerang on its way back, due to the monkey's imbalance. After a couple of strikes, the monkey took off, the bug on its head falling off and dying. Maybe this bug was an agent of twilight and had taken over the monkey's mind?

That would explain what the monkey had said earlier about the boss going crazy. The bug from the twilight realm had infested the mind of the head monkey, and from there the woods was unprotected as the monsters came and took Faron's light power.

It had dropped its boomerang, and when we approached it, it lifted into the air by itself, creating a gust of wind.

"I am the Fairy of Winds who resides in this boomerang. You have freed me from evil, and I now have my true power back. Please, take it with you, use it to aid your quest, and may both my power and my blessing go with you. If you focus power in the boomerang before releasing it, it will unleash the power of the wind, aiding you in unforeseen ways.

It made its way over to Zach, who had technically been the one to best the monkey, so I wasn't too concerned by its choice. Plus I wasn't too sure that the fairy would be upset if we shared the boomerang as needed.

Upon leaving, we quickly found another monkey in a cage that we freed due to the boomerang. Midna popped out and said, "Well, I guess not all of the monkeys are free yet, maybe you should free the rest of them and see what happens!" and it went back in my shadow.

I was semi astounded. So far, Midna has been nothing but uncouth and rude, but that almost seemed like a genuine concern for the monkeys' well beings, at least at first. But she wasn't wrong. I would need all of the monkeys to be freed if they were going to be able to protect the woods again, like I theorized.

We ventured forth, using our new Gale Boomerang to summon mini tornados that helped us solve problems from before. Once we had finally progressed all the way as far as we could see, we backtracked, finding keys that unlocked doors and freeing a few more monkeys in the process. Spiders and other monsters stood in our way, but have two people work together to kill monsters is certainly easier than it would be if it was just me. I was glad I asked the lights to bring Zach into this world.

Once all the monkeys had been freed, we made our way to the chamber where they were gathering, and they formed a huge swing with their bodies, to bring Zach and I across the room without needing a bridge. Their teamwork was inspiring, and I was glad that Midna had suggested that we free all of them.

Once we were on the final platform, the monkeys stopped swinging, and stood at the ready in case we wanted to come back across. But this seemed to be the final room. I took out a key that we had gotten earlier for solving a puzzle with the Boomerang by throwing in in a z formation, and slid it into the lock on the giant door inside.

The lock spun, its golden hue shining in the light as it gave a click and slid off the door, its chains falling down. We entered the room.

A horrible stench permeated the atmosphere. Everywhere we could see was filled in the gaseous purple smog that had lain outside the temple. And rising from the gas? An even bigger plant monster; this one complete with two giant heads.

Zach and I had barely a moment to take all this in before we dove to the side; one of the heads had instantly thrown itself at us, trying to eat us tasty morsels.

It lingered for a few moments, so Zach and I took those moments to swing our weapons at it. It took barely any damage, these plant heads were hardened with years of experience and fighting. But what could we do?

Zach understood instantly what he needed to do, and pulled out his boomerang. He directed it to a bomb bug, and then at one of the heads, and the boomerang brought the bug straight to the plant monster's mouth. It exploded, and the head shrank into the smog. He repeated the process with the other head, and I could only watch in fascination as he took it down so flawlessly.

How'd you know what to do-" I began to ask him, only to be silenced as the heads rose once more from the gas, but this time with a third appendage in the middle, this one with an eye enclosed in a hardened mask. His eyes glinted.

We looked around for any more of the bomb bugs, but they all seemed to disappear once the plant boss came in full glory. After a minute of dodging the heads, we heard the cry of the white monkey. It swung passed the plant, and the plant didn't even pay it any attention. It landed at the other side, and pulled out a bomb bug. Perfect.

Zach threw the boomerang, this time aiming the bomb bug at the eye in the middle, because that was clearly where it's weak point was.

It exploded, knocking the eye to the ground in front of us. We hacked at it for about five second before the appendage picked itself back up. This thing could take a beating.

Zach brought the head down once more and when it still didn't die from us attacking it, we finally talked.

"This thing is really taking a long time to die! If only there was some way to kill it in one shot!" He shouted as he dodged one of the heads.

On shot huh? Wait a second… "Zach, bring the eye down again, but stay back!"

He nodded, "Gotcha."

There was something that we had just learned. When an opponent was downed, and it kept getting back up, there was only one thing to do…

The head exploded for a third time, the eye falling right in front of where I had positioned myself.

"Secret Technique!" I yelled, jumping into the air. "Ending Blow!" I stabbed the eye clean through, ripping it off of its stalk as it tried to rear its head back in pain. When the eye didn't follow, the plant shriveled up and broke, and the whole thing exploded into a million black pieces of shadow. They stood still in the air for a moment, before they fused together into a stone piece, one that didn't look dissimilar to the stone helmet that Midna wore.

Speaking of whom, the imp left my shadow. "Eee hee hee! Well done!" It said. "That's… What I've been looking for." It's hair reached out and grabbed the stone, and while I was a little surprised, Twilight creature must have all sorts of magic and qualities that I didn't know about.

"That's a Fused Shadow." It continued, "It's what the light spirit called dark power, remember what the spirits said? About matching the power of the king of shadows? Could it really be this easy? Is this all there is to it? There's actually a total of three Fused Shadows, so this makes one and there are two more. There are also two more light spirits, so they probably have the shadows hidden away. If you want to know exactly what the Fused Shadows are, well I'll tell you if you can find the other two."

And at that, Midna opened a teal green portal on the ground near us. "Let's get out of here."

Zach and I agreed, so we entered the portal and she teleported us out of the temple, to the spring.

"Heroes," Faron said to us as we approached. "Do not think that now Hyrule is saved from the spread of Twilight. Leave these woods and go to the east, where you will find the land protected by the spirit Eldin. There you will find the children you so seek. But know that these lands lie in twilight; they are now a dark realm covered by the clouds of dusk. If you set foot beyond the curtain of twilight, you will revert to your beast forms, so be prepared. Heroes chosen by the gods, go to the east, to the spirit of Eldin…" and the voice of Faron faded away, leaving us with nothing except Midna.

"Well, that gives us lots of room to roam the land! But I suppose you two want to go help the other light spirits, don't you? Well, don't worry, when you turn into beasts again, I'll take good care of you. The first thing you need to do is find the land covered in twilight. Once you do, I'll bring you across again. See you later!" and it fled back into my shadow.

I looked at Zach and noticed her was looking back towards the village.

"We ought to let them know that we're still alive." He said. "And we have to let them know that we've word of where their children might be located, but we can't tell them about the twilight and our beast forms, that would only make them mistrust us."

I nodded. "Yeah, plus we can't possibly make our way towards a village that's a day and a half away with these rations. Let's go back to town."

And so we walked back towards Ordon Village, eager to leave the woods behind for the day.


	8. Chapter 8

Zach and I walked into Ordon Village with our heads hanging low. It was drawing close to night time and we were tired. As we passed through the streets, we came across one of the adults, Malo and Talo's father, and gruff man who went by the name Jaggle.

"Hey, I know you two!" Jaggle cried out, noticing us as we walked into town. "Come in, you guys look tired. I'll go see if Rusl can house you guys, I know you were friendly with him. He took us over to where Rusl was watching guard near the other entrance, this one to the south of town.

"Oi! Rusl I found these two walking into town."

Rusl turned around, and when he saw the two of us he ran forwards, almost half expectantly. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to come back to town without the children, but what were we going to do now that we were here?"

"The curtain of darkness, the monsters, they're all part of the same thing." I began. "Monsters are coming from the Twilight, and they are spreading eternal twilight across the land."

Rusl nodded. "That would explain the giant black wall that hovered on the entrance to Faron woods. Tell me, have you seen our kids at all?"

Zach and I shook our heads. "No, but we have heard that they were taken further into Hyrule by the monsters, for what ends we know not. Unfortunately it is impossible to enter the twilight unless you get dragged in, and nor can you leave. We found a way to restore light to Faron woods, so we were able to leave that area, but we don't know where we'll hit a wall next."

Rusl and Jaggle slumped on hearing the news. "So it's impossible." Jaggle said. "We'll never see our kids again."

Zach piped up. "Not necessarily, we have already freed one province, I'm sure that we Russell and I can enter the twilight once more, and free that again. We won't rest until we find your kids."

Rusl grinned. "Let me help you then," he tried to say before doubling over in pain.

Jaggle sighed. "Rusl you're in no shape to be leaving town. "These two young men have promised to find our kids, so let's leave it to them for now, at least until you're healed up."

Rusl sighed. "I suppose you're right. Come on, let's get the two of you inside, and you can tell me about what happened."

Rusl brought us back to his house before he noticed that we had our gear back. "Oh! I had found your swords and backpacks near the gate, but the monsters stole them away from me again. It's good to know that they're back in your hands."

We entered his house, where Uli fussed over Rusl for a moment, before she began to make dinner for all of us. While we ate, we explained how the spirits normally use their light powers to protect the land, but how the twilight monsters took the light from the spirits to enshroud the land in twilight. We then told them of how, once we got our weapons back (Since we weren't going to tell them we were animals) we killed the monsters that were holding the light hostage, and brought it back to the spirits.

"This is very interesting news" Uli said, rubbing her pregnant belly. "Hopefully this means we can push back the twilight and see the children again.

"Indeed, I'm going to see if I can contact any of my old friends from Castle Town, see if we can get something happening to push back the monsters."

We didn't have the heart to tell them that in the twilight, people were as spirits and wouldn't be able to respond if twilight enshrouded the town, but that was mostly because it would've invalidated our story of being able to fight the monsters in the twilight.

"You guys should get some rest," Uli told us. "Rusl told me that you'll be searching for Colin and the rest of the children, so I'll cook some more food so that you can go onwards."

We thanked her and went to sleep for them night.

The next morning, Uli had wrapped up some food for us in our backpacks, and we made our way out of the town, back towards the twilight. We travelled through the woods without any hindrance, passing by both of the springs and heading out towards Hyrule Field.

"The spirit said we had to head East, right? Towards the Eldin province?" Zach asked as I looked at my map.

"Yeah, that's what it looks like here." I said, holding the map in front of me. "We can either take the road, or just, run across straight this way."

"Let's just run across the field, I want to get this over with as soon as possible." Zach said to me.

I nodded, and we diverged from the road, just wandering over the hills, until we met back up with the road near the entrance to the Eldin province. A couple of monsters accosted us, but they were nothing that we couldn't handle, the monsters in this world were apparently really stupid, and just let us slice and dice them with our swords.

We approached the curtain of twilight once more, and Midna popped out of my shadow. "So, are you guys sure you're ready to reenter the twilight? The Spirit said that you'd return to your beast forms? Are you ok with that?"

Zach and I nodded, filled with conviction. It wasn't as if we had any super hard time controlling our beast bodies, plus it was kind of interesting that we could turn into animals, even if it felt like they were predetermined.

Midna shrugged. "Alright, just make sure you have everything you need before we go in, I'll hold your stuff for you guys once more while we're in the twilight."

I looked at Zach. "We're all set, right? Don't need anything else?"

He nodded, "Let's do this."

Midna gave a creepy grin, which I was able to somehow see despite her being a shadow. She entered the wall of twilight, and reached out and pulled the two of us in.

Once we were inside, we instantly turned back into animals, Zach once more a wolf and myself a snow leopard.

"Alright, now you need to listen to what I say from now on!" Midna said, giving a laugh. "Oh, look! How lovely, the black clouds of twilight are so fetching today… I feel so much more at ease here. And you two look so much better as beasts than in those dusty old clothes anyways! Eee hee! So let's get going."

We moved onwards, passing through the mountain path, before we came upon a broken wooden sword. Zach moved towards it, and sniffed it.

"I think I can track them, my wolf senses are telling me where to go to follow the scent."

"Nice!" I replied. We moved onwards, running into a bunch of black beasts, and the pillars of darkness descended around us. We easily dispatched the black beasts, know having a little more experience fighting them and using our animal bodies. The portal above turned teal.

We looked forwards, but there was just an open ravine where a bridge should be.

"Looks like there's no bridge here…" Midna said. "I wonder if this is the work of those shadow creatures… Ugh, what a pain! Here, take a look at your map!"

Midna materialize our maps for us, and we were astounded that it worked the same way as the wood temple map, in that the areas that we've been to were highlighted while places we've yet to go to are still darkened.

"On your map, see those little marks here and there?" Midna asked. "Well, those are the portals that you've created by destroying those shadow beasts. I can use my powers to take you to any of the portals you've opened, and I'm pretty sure that there was a giant bridge somewhere here in Faron."

The imp was right, as we had passed through the area near the bird salesman, we had encountered some shadow beasts, and off to the side was a huge wooden structure that leaned on the rocks.

I pointed at the location in question, and Midna used the powers of twilight to teleport us there. "See, I told you. We're here! You know, most people can't leave that twilight that easily, you'd better be grateful." We quickly found the wood structure. As I looked at it more, I easily saw how it was almost clearly the wooden bridge that had been taken.

"It's perfect," Zach said, "Let's take it back." Midna used magic to lift the bridge and teleport it away before we also teleported back into the twilight. It carefully dropped the bridge in the open area, making sure that it didn't break at all.

"Just as I expected!" The imp said. "Isn't the powers of twilight amazing? Call me if you ever need the power again. It should be able to help out, don't you think? Alright, let's keep going!"

We continued onwards, killing a couple of smaller monsters here and there before running into a huge gate, complete with spikes and a padlock.

"Huh, this is a pretty elaborate gate. What are they trying to keep in? Or out? I bet it'll be worth our time to dig in." Midna said to us, pointing at a hole under the gate. We squeezed underneath, one at a time, and I followed Zach as he led us onwards.


	9. Chapter 9

The path that Zach was leading us on quickly turned into a town, and we walked in without many issues. Off to the right was another spring, the broken spirit hovering above the water. "Heroes changed by the twilight, come here," It said. We noticed, however, that a couple of black monsters patrolled the area near the spirit, so we took them out and yet another portal formed above the spring.

If Midna was able to teleport us to every portal that we made by killing these guys, eventually we'd never need to travel! The monsters just kept coming and making more portals. But I digress, and we walked towards the spring.

Yadda yadda, spirit of light, collect my light back, good stuff. It gave us another grapevine looking thing, and used its power to make us aware of where the bugs were. We walked further into town, unperturbed by the darkness.

We set about killing the bugs. About a third of the way through, we entered this one house, only to be shocked as most of the children from Ordon village were inside it, being protected by a large man with long brown hair.

We listened to them talk about monsters for a bit, and then about insects in the cellar. Beth started to cry, but the other kids assured her that their parents would come and save them soon.

We entered the cellar after opening it, and killed the monsters inside, before leaving through a graveyard exit. We broke into a couple of houses, killed a couple of bugs, all in all a good time, that is, until we accidently started to burn a house down.

"What happened!" Midna yelled. "As romantic as this is, I'm getting out of here, and the imp flew towards the exit, and Zach and I quickly followed her. As soon as we had left, the house exploded; it must have been stocked with the bombs that one of the spirits had been talking about.

"Well, I guess that's one way to hunt down the bugs." Midna said. "Sacrificing somebody's house so that we can restore light to the area? Well I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles."

I gave a loose grin. One of my old friends, Tim, had said that phrase all the time in my old world. It was sad to think about the fact that I will probably never talk to him again, but the reminder of his existence still made me happy.

We continued, now on the road up the mountainside. A signpost on the side said, "Welcome to Death Mountain."

I didn't particularly feel welcomed, at least not by the name of the place, but we continued on nonetheless. After we killed one of the bugs, we noticed a weird stone that was making noises as the wind blew through it.

"I gotta howl." Zach said. I looked at him questioningly, wondering how he came to that conclusion. "The stone is just, called me, telling me to match the noises that are coming through it. Trust me."

And he began to howl, messing up at first, probably because it was his first time ever howling at something, but eventually he got it right, and suddenly the two of us we one a cliff, overlooking grass, and mountains, and the ocean all at once. He howled the tune once more, and this time we saw the golden wolf from earlier howling right along, howling the melody like a song from an instrument.

"Let teachings of old pass to you…" It said. "Take swords in hand and find me." And with these words, it jumped into the fields below, and we were once more transported to the twilight where we had been.

"That was mad trippy." Zach said to me, and I nodded.

"Hey!" Midna said, holding out our map. "Something has happened!" And sure enough, on our map, near the Ordon spring what a small glowing mark.

"Maybe that golden wolf is there." I suggested. "We should check it out once we have our human forms once more."

Zach nodded, and we continued up Death Mountain. We encountered another group of black monsters, this time four of them instead of three. Luckily, they were all split up except for two of them, so Zach and I took out the outliers before taking the last two down, and they disappeared and formed yet another teal portal. We eventually found the last of the bugs in a hot springs of all places, and then returned to the spring.

Giving the broken spirit its light back yielded the same results as before. We turned back into humans, and the world resumed its daylight schedule, the sun shining high in the sky.

"Aw, I was just starting to have fun!" Shadow Midna fake pouted. "Now don't forget that Fused Shadow!" and it jumped into my shadow. The spring lit up with light, allowing us to see what looked like a giant bird for the spirit of light.

"My name is Eldin," It said. "I am one of the light spirits of Hyrule. I am the spirit that guards these lands. Oh Heroes chosen by the gods, the dark power that you seek lies in the sacred grounds of the proud mountain dwellers. But these grounds have already been defiled, draped in shadow and seeded with evil. You two must go to those sacred grounds and aid them."

The spirit disappeared, and as we turned around, the children were leaving the man's house. "Hey, it's those travelers!" The kids said, running up to us. "We knew someone would come to save us!" The tall man approached.

"So you two are here to assist us? We are well met, I am Renaldo, shaman of this town. And this," He gestured to his side, where two people stood, one in the smelting mask looking excited, and one another small child, this one about twelve years old. "This is my daughter, Luda."

Colin piped in. "The monsters took us and left us to die, but Mr. Renaldo found us."

"At first, I couldn't believe that they had come from so distant a place as Ordona Province." Renaldo said, giving a small laugh.

"Yeah, I… Well we don't remember much. All of a sudden everyone was captured, and then… until now, it's been a real nightmare." Colin said, the other children nodding in agreement."

Talo said, "Yeah, it was like a terrible dream and we couldn't wake up."

Renaldo began talking. "Nightmares are everywhere these days, it would seem. This village had certainly seen its share of recent hardships. The dark beasts attacked, but even worse was the sudden and inexplicable change in the mountain-dwelling Goron Tribe. They had long been our friends, but suddenly treated us as foes. Even now they refuse to permit us entry into their mines. It's hard to believe, that such a gentle and proud tribe could change so suddenly. Maybe something in the mines is the cause of this?" He trailed off, and Zach and I looked at each other, our eyes narrowing.

From what we knew, the Fused Shadows are never to be used by those of the Light, it's power would likely try and corrupt those that used it, as seen by the giant plant monster from the other temple. If one of the Gorons had gotten ahold of one of the Shadows, then certainly they would've had a shift in attitude, like with the monkey boss.

"Let's go Zach," I said. "It's time we showed those Gorons what the Chosen heroes are made of."

He grinned as we walked away from the entourage of children and Renaldo, ready to make our way back up the mountain, this time in human form when the Gorons could see us.

After getting our asses handed to us by a literal living piece of rock, we made our way back down the mountain, rubbing our backs. We encountered Renaldo by the sign saying welcome.

"Oh!" He said, rushing over to us. "It's good to see that you're in one piece, I saw you heading up the mountain. Are you trying to reach the Gorons of Death Mountain? It's far too dangerous! They recognize only strength! A normal human could never persuade them… But, well, I do know one person who was able to best them and earn their trust. His name is Bo, you may know him as the mayor of Ordon Village. If you hope to go up the mountain, please, go to him, and let him know that the children are safe.

Of course, bringing them back would be best, but we can't keep them safe from the monsters on the road without a horse and a cart. I'm sure though, if you let the Mayor know that I am keeping them safe here, in Kakariko, then he will be willing to teach you the secret to earning the Gorons' trust."

We nodded in acknowledgement, but we noticed that by this time the sun was getting closer to the horizon.

"We'll rest here for tonight, and set out in the morning." Zach said. "We don't want to be outside of the city borders when night falls."

Renaldo smiled. "Of course. I'm sure that we can get you settled into one of the rooms in the inn, at least for the night."

With the fall of twilight, and being able to explore a little more, we found that Kakariko village was definitely livelier than Ordon, and by that I mean there were more people. The inn was filled, the tables filled with happy looking people, probably cheering now that the monsters were out of town.

We booked two separate rooms for the night, considering how they only had one person rooms available at the time. After eating some of the food that Uli had prepared for us a couple of days ago, Zach and I parted ways, each of us going to sleep for the night.


	10. Chapter 10

I woke up in the morning with a clear head. My eyes opened, and I took in the shaft of light that filtered in through the window. The light blinded me for a moment, not letting me fully understand what was around me, before I realized that Midna was staring out the window at the open daylight. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

"Midna?" I said, my voice a little low from having just woken up. "What're you doing?"

The imp jumped back from the window, clearly surprised that I was awake. "Oh!" It looked from side to side. "Nothing, I was just looking at the town."

I gave a slight frown, not knowing why the twilight creature would be interested in the daylight filled village, before giving a shrug. It was none of my business.

"Alright, I suppose…" I had a random thought, one that latched on to previous ideas that I had come up with for the world that I had been placed in. "Actually, I was wondering if it were possible for you to teach me about magic at all." The shadow in front of me appeared confused for a moment, so I continued. "It's just that, I don't think that I'll be much use with just a sword in the future. Clearly the king of the twilight is going to up the notch in how much skill the twilight beasts have now that we've cleared two areas of twilight, plus defended one area from being infected in the first place. I figured that if I had some sort of ability to use magic, it would be easier to fight off the shadow beasts."

The imp put a hand up to its chin, clearly thinking about it. "I can teach you the fundamentals of magic, I suppose, that is, if you have the aptitude. The only problem is that we of the twilight have a different type of magic than most humans do. I wouldn't be able to teach you anything about my own magic, and I certainly don't know anything about normal human magic. You would need to pick up a book on that in order to progress very far."

I nodded, a grin etching on my face. "Hey Midna, I don't know if I should be telling you this, but I trust you enough to stay with me at least until we get you your fused shadows. Zach and I, we come from another world. Not anything like the twilight world or wherever it is you come from, but more like an alternate reality. One in which there is no magic at all. Zach and I died there, but before our souls passed on to whatever afterlife there is, a bunch of lights told us that we were could help save this world and put us here with new bodies."

Midna's eyes grew wide. "From out of this world?" Its eyes narrowed. "Then why would you presume that you are able to use magic then, especially if you have no magic in your own world?"

I shrugged. "I suppose it has something to do with the fact that the colored lights gave us new bodies, I mean, they did mention something along the lines of powers that we could unlock. Plus, we turn into animals in the twilight realm. While that might just mean that we have the gods' protection, whatever that might entail, I think that the gods have given us the means to use magic within ourselves. Maybe with some control over magic I might be able to retain my human form in the twilight? Or better yet, take on the form of a snow leopard whenever I wanted. I think that being someone apart from this world, I might be able to learn twilight magic."

The Imp stared at me for almost a full minute before it broke down into laughter. "Eee hee hee! You truly believe that you can learn Twili magic? You're more interesting than I thought!" Its tone became a little serious. "If you truly want to learn magic, then you're going to have to do exactly as I tell you to. You're going to need to learn how to meditate, and that takes a lot of free time. It'll slow down our progress by a significant amount."

I looked at the imp. "And do you truly think that we'll be able to get really far with two amateurs with swords, own with a shield? As much as the lights think that I'm going to help the world, I'm no use if I end up dead because I couldn't fight properly. I need some advantage. Something that I might be good at, and as much as I would like to brag about my amazing sword skills, they are subpar at best. Zach's already shown better aptitude than me with the sword, I'm sure I can leave most of the physical fighting up to him, at least while we are in human form."

Midna gave a smirk. "Alright, but if I'm going to teach you, then I'm going to set some ground rules. First, we train at night, or early in the morning, when my powers are strongest. Second, you can never practice magic without me supervising you, at least not before I say that you are good. Magic is highly volatile when people first begin to learn to use it, which is why it's easier to train people when they are young. Since you're, what, twenty years old?" I gave a nod. "Since you're twenty, it'll be harder for you to learn control, and as such your magic could blow up and kill those around you, which is why I will supervise your magical use. And lastly, you've got to call me your master." It smiled, giving me a wink.

I pondered them for a moment before nodding. "These rules seem fair enough." I said. "Although I don't know about calling you my master. Hell, I don't even know what you are!"

Midna looked affronted for a moment. "What, can't you tell that I'm a girl? Are you stupid or something?"

Clearly I was taken aback. All of the twilight creatures that I had encountered so far I had presumed were genderless, and I guess that I had also assumed Midna was as well. "Wait, if you're a girl, then does that mean that there's a race of twilight people?"

"Well duh, of course there are! A couple of hundred years ago, my people were normal humans, quite like you, well maybe not like you, you weirdo. But they dabbled in dark and forbidden magics, and so the Hylian royalty banished them to the Twilight realm, where we adapted over time."

"Does everyone look like you?" I asked rather insensitively.

"What?" She looked down on herself. "No, the king of the twilight sealed away most of my powers when I tried to oppose him, and that put me in this imp-like form." She gave a sly smile. "In my true form, I'm the most beautiful woman in the whole of the twilight."

I gave a laugh. "Alright, I suppose I believe you. And I guess I'll call you my master, but only while I'm training with magic."

She looked smug. "Alright, now that we've got that settled, we really should be leaving soon. I heard Zach's room door open about a half an hour ago, he's probably eating breakfast or exploring the town for some last minute supplies before you go back to Ordon Village."

I nodded, and after Midna jumped back in my shadow we left my inn bedroom with my gear on my back. Zach was nowhere to be seen on the bottom floor of the inn, and after checking out with the innkeeper, I left the building. I wandered for a couple of minutes before thinking to myself. Where would Zach be? Probably in the first place he could be to find something cool or dangerous.

It was then that I noticed the bomb shop, and I smiled. Upon entering the bomb shop, I found Zach sighing exasperated at what the shop owner was telling us. "Those monsters blew up my bomb storage garage, so I'm fresh out of stock! I'm sorry, but you'll have to come by in a week or so if you want to buy some bombs." I looked at Zach with wide eyes… I just remembered that building that we had accidentally blown up on top of the hill when searching for the bugs.

We left the building, me feeling bad about ruining this guy's business, and Zach feeling upset that he wouldn't have any means of blowing stuff up. After discussing a few last minute things with Renaldo about sending messages to the villagers of Ordon, we made our way out of town.

The day was fairly uneventful. Aside from the occasional monster on the road, the open fields seemed a lot more devoid of monsters than before, probably due to the fact that the land was no longer shrouded in twilight, at least in this area. We set up camp somewhere in Hyrule field, and went to sleep early.

When I awoke the next morning, it was still dark. "Hey Midna, let's do some training." I said, and she popped out of my shadow.

"Alright kiddo, Since this is your first day of training, we're going to start with the most basic way to learn and understand your magic. You're going to meditate there for about an hour. Since this is your first day, I'm not going to tell you what you should be doing, just try and relax you mind and let's see what happens."

I nod, and sat down in what I though was a decent meditative stand; cross legged with my hands in my lap. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind, which was actually quite easy due to a year of practice trying to learn how to shut off my brain in order to sleep. Once my mind was blank, I had no idea what to do from there, and the next thing I knew, Midna was shaking me.

"Hey, numbskull, you fell asleep while sitting there." She said. "How are you supposed to meditate if you are asleep?"

I shrugged. "I dunno, I cleared my mind and since I had no idea what to do from there, my brain naturally decided that it would just go back to sleep. I understand that meditating might have something to do with magic, maybe strengthening it or something, but I have no experience with meditating in this world."

"Hmm." Midna said. "Well since you seem adept at clearing your mind, I'm going to breach your mind, mostly to see if you have any magical potential. Obviously you should have noticed something if you were able to use magic, so I need to make sure you do in fact have it within yourself. I need you to reenter the meditative state, and when you are there, I am going to use my own magic to enter your mind. I am going to need your permission to do so, as it is incredibly private for me to do so, and me barging into your mind with my magic could break your own mind and leave you a vegetable."

I nod. "You can enter my mind to help me with magic training, Midna, I won't try and fight you." I sat down once more, having had stood up once reawakened, and once more cleared my mind. Once I was in the state of meditation, the darkness of my mind echoed around me, and I tried to gain some sort of clarity where I was in the darkness of my own mind when suddenly a bright orange light pierced through the darkness next to me.

It moved in slowly, appearing from nonexistence as though through a small crack in my consciousness, and I suddenly understood that this was Midna's own magic coming into my head. I allowed it to come in, giving it a wide berth as it came in. Once it was there, it began moving around, illuminating the darkness that was my brain.

 _You've never organized your brain before?_ Came a sudden unbidden thought into my head.

 _I have no idea what that even means._ I thought back at it, and the magic seemed to bob up and down.

 _I suppose if you haven't had much experience with meditation that would make sense. All children who learn magic learn first to organize their thoughts in some sort of means. Most people like to do so in order to keep track of their memories without needing much effort._ The voice said, and I quickly realized that it was Midna speaking to me.

 _This will be a little bit harder to find any magic you might have, but easier because I know what to look for. Do you have any sort of limit on your mind, like a wall or a door that you can't explore passed?_

I pondered this for a moment, before moving myself to the edge of my mind, where I couldn't think of anything existing, not my memories or skill knowledge or anything. Just a huge blockade, like a wall of blackness that I had never given much thought about.

 _Ah, this is what we're here for. I can feel it, even if you can't. Listen, and listen very carefully. There's a lot of magic behind this wall, so what I'm going to need you to do is envision a small hole through it, maybe the width of your pinky finger._

I nodded my imaginary head, after all, we were in my mind, and I tried to envision what she had told me. The wall of darkness shifted, and before I knew it, there was a small hole leading through the darkness. On the other side was a bright light.

 _Wow, that's an interesting color of magic…_ Midna thought, musing to herself. _Alright, now that you can see it, you need to reach out with your mind and slowly bring it through the hole you made. This is the most delicate part. If you reach in and pull too much at once, that small hole you created will just expand until the magic crashes into your mind, heavily damaging your brain. This is why children train when they are young; they have barely any magic at young ages._

I understood the situation. I had a lot of magic, all of it locked behind this wall and I was going to free a little bit at a time. I reached forward through the hole that I had made, and delicately grabbed ahold of the light in front of me, it was still too bright for me to properly see my magic. Once I touched it, the magic calmed, having previously swarming to and fro, and I pulled it through the hole slowly.

 _Good, now leave the magic there, we've done enough for today. The magic needs to get used to your mind, and the small tendril of it sticking through the hole with allow it to do so. It's like getting a fish at a fair and leaving it in the bag for a day while the bag sits on top of the water in the tank. The magic will get used to your mind, and so when you pull more out, it won't accidentally kill you._

The orange light slowly backed out of my mind, until it completely disappeared, and I opened my eyes in real life, seeing the dawn hours as the orange and pink colors hit the clouds above us.

"Hey Midna, what color was my magic? You mentioned that it was a strange color?" I asked the shadow being that sat in front of me in the air.

She looked at me and gave a sly smile. "If you couldn't tell for yourself, then you don't have mastery over magic yet. You will need to understand your magic the way you understand yourself as a person before you can see its color. I'm not going to tell you your color magic because it might disrupt or sway your magical training once you know. It's important to realize that every color of magic has its own specialty. My lustrous orange magic is a signifier of my incredible ability to control the power of twilight, and the reason you could see it is because I showed you. You need to learn the basics of magic, which cover all the colors, but if you were able to see your magical color from the start, you might only study that color's magic, which would leave you weaker than if you studied all types of magic."

I nodded. It was like art. As someone who liked to draw, I understood that drawing with pencils was the simplest form, but once you had the basics you could then go on to use only pens, or ink or paint if you wanted. Start from the bottom, and then branch out once your base is covered.

"Thanks Master Midna, I appreciate your help today." I told her seriously. Now I knew for a fact that I had magic, and if it took me a week, or even a month to use it, I would benefit greatly from the ability to use it.

She smiled; an actual genuine smile rather than one of her signature smirks. "We'll begin your next training tomorrow morning, before the sun rises. Now let's wake your friend up and let's get going for the day, I don't want to spend two more days on the road, sleeping in a bed feels so much nicer!"

I smiled, and went to wake Zach up.


	11. Chapter 11

After waking Zach up, we had breakfast. It was a quiet affair, and after packing up our things we headed across the rest of Hyrule Field. We joked about a few things here and there, and even Midna had a joke to tell. We killed a couple of monsters here and there, and over a couple of hours we finally reached the Faron woods. We stopped by the lantern guy's house, where we found out his name was Coro, and ate lunch with him since we were starving by that point.

After lunch, we headed towards the village. When we got there, a couple of the villagers waved hello to us before moving along. We quickly found the Mayor in front of his house, and he called us over.

"Hey! Russell and Zach, was it? It's good to see you safe and sound. The villagers had told me that they had seen you about a week ago, but I had no idea that you had returned to town. Come inside, quickly!"

Zach and I shrugged, before following him inside. Once there, we explained how the children were under Renaldo's care in Kakariko Village.

"Well, that's good. Renaldo's an old friend. If the kids are in his care, then we can relax. So, don't keep me waiting, Tell me about my daughter! Ilia is with the rest of them, right?"

We thought about it, and both Zach and I shook our heads. "Sorry sir," I said. "Neither of us saw Ilia with the other children."

"Oh, I see… that ain't what I wanted to hear…" He looked downtrodden, and I knew that he was worrying about where his daughter could be. "Ah but, I guess I should think about all five of those poor kids, not just my own. They're all in danger. What I should be asking is how I can help out."

Zach looked at me briefly before speaking up. "Actually sir, we need to get on Death Mountain. But right now, the Gorons for some reason are being unreasonably hostile towards us and the village below. We heard that you might be able to help us out."

"What's that now? The Gorons of Death Mountain?" The Mayor said. "I see, so Renaldo told you that… Well, it's true. I did defeat the Gorons in a contest of strength and earned their trust. That is, with the help of a little secret. I can teach you the secret, but you have to promise that you will absolutely, positively will not disclose it to anybody, particularly Renaldo or the Gorons."

Zach and I nodded. What had we to lose by keeping a little secret?

"Alrighty then, you can't tell a soul! Come this way."

He led us into a back room, where a raised circle stood in the middle of the room.

"Now, you two have heard of sumo wrestling, right? Gorons like to match strength in sumo contests. The basics of sumo wrestling are simple. The first man to push his foe outside the arena wins. You have to grapple with the opponent and push them to the side, or backwards. These techniques are pretty basic. Master them and you'll be shovin' folks out of the arena in no time."

I looked at Zach and gave a small grin. "Zach, we both know that you have way more muscle than me, so you're going to need to be the one who wrestles the Gorons.

He gave me a stinkeye. "Oh no you don't. In order for us to travel the Gorons' lands, we're both going to need to learn how to wrestle."

And so we spent hours learning the secrets of sumo wrestling. Where to grab the body from maximum leverage; how to slap the opponent to knock them off balance, giving us an opening to grab them, even how to counter slap someone who dodged our grab or first slap. We learned how to get out of a grip properly, and by the time we were done, both Zach and I had thrown the Mayor out of the ring several times.

"You guys are naturals. However, you would still never be able to beat a Goron as you are. Now, the secret to beating the Gorons is locked away in that chest. Take is with you." He pointed at a treasure chest behind him, and we approached it. Inside was a pair of metal boots.

"You can probably tell, those boots are made of Iron. Whoever wears them won't easily be pushed around, even by a Goron. If you're fixing to fight a Goron, be sure to wear those boots. Let's be square though: you two can't tell ANYONE about those boots. Especially Renaldo. Unfortunately I only have the one pair, so Russell was right earlier that only one of you are going to be wrestling the Gorons. Good luck to the two of you!"

Once we left the building, Midna quickly zapped the Iron Boots away to wherever she held our gear for us. "That'll be way too heavy for you guys to lug all around the countryside with you. That being said, it's getting dark, you guys should sleep for the night.

And so we made our way over to Rusl's house, which we had planned on doing already. After knocking on the door, Uli greeted us and ushered us in. We ate dinner with her telling her about how her son and most of the other village children were in Kakariko, under the protection of a man named Renaldo, whom the Mayor trusted. She smiled with relief when we told her this.

"That's good news. My husband actually left the town a few days ago, about a day or two after you left, and I haven't seen him since. He probably meant to join up with you, and if you see him on the road, could you give him this?" She held up a coat. "He always forgets how cold it can get in the northern parts of Hyrule, unlike us here, where it's always warm. Promise me that you'll give this to him if you see him?"

We nod, and slept at her house that night.

In the morning, I once more practiced pulling my magic out through the small hole slowly, doubling the amount that had access to the rest of my mind. While doing so, Midna instructed me on how to properly organize my mind. Instead of swirling darkness, I now had a lightened room as a stage for my mind, but I couldn't get much further before it was time to leave.

After we had breakfast with Uli, we left the building. On her suggestion, we stopped by the village farm, to buy a horse. After talking to the man who ran the farm, we bought a horse from the man for close to a thousand rupees, which we had collected steadily over the course of the tree temple and just picking up rocks and cutting grass. This world's economy must surely be a joke considering we could buy a horse just for three days' worth of essentially mowing lawns and killing monsters, but hey, who was I to complain?

The horse that we bought was black, with a white mane and tail. It looked incredibly intelligent, and the farm owner told us that it was a girl horse by the name of Nyx. She had been trained to listen to all directions given to her, and after saddling her up, we made our way out of town at a much faster pace than we would have otherwise made.

Going across Hyrule Field seemed like a breeze on a horse. On the one hand, we weren't killing any monsters, and thus weren't sharpening our sword fighting skills, but on the other hand, we rode passed the monsters and they didn't give chase, seeming content to just hang out on the field.

I suppose that we probably should be cutting down the monsters, but from my hypothesis, the ones we were seeing came from another world, which is why they puffed into smoke when we killed them. As such, they were just going to keep replenishing their numbers until we closed the door to this other world, wherever it might be.

We reached Kakariko Village right after lunchtime, and what we found there stopped us in our tracks. The Huge monster, the one on the giant boar that attacked the town the first time with his underlings, was holding up Colin by his arm, and he was seemingly passed out given his state of not moving. At least I hoped he was unconscious. The huge monster gave a wry smile and charged his boar towards the exit of town, and Zach and I gave chase on Horseback.

Once we were out on the field, I quickly realized that we wouldn't be catching up to the monster anytime soon with two people on Nyx's back. Zach realized this too, and jumped off her back.

"Midna, come with me, I'm going to need your help!" He shouted, running towards the smaller monsters on boarback that held bows and arrows. Midna obliged and left my shadow to join them. She pulled the wind boomerang out of where she held her items, and tossed it to Zach, and he began to throw it at the smaller monsters, confusing them and throwing them from the boars' backs.

I rode off, toward the larger monster than now had Colin tied to a giant stick, held aloft on the boar's back. I urged Nyx forward, and got close enough to the monster to lash out with my sword, aiming for its armor straps. The pieces of armor came off one by one as I sliced it, it trying to lose me by switching directions after I would cut off a pauldron or its breastplate. Finally, it had its boar jump above a blockade of wood, and I followed, only to realize that I had followed it onto a bridge. A smaller monster from above shot the wooden blockade with a fiery arrow, and it caught on fire.

Luckily this horse was trained to trust its rider, or I would be in trouble. Those vicious tusks of the boars extended quite far from its mouth, and I knew that I would have to make Nyx dodge to the side to avoid getting skewered. This was an impromptu joust.

I urged my horse forwards, and the boar aligned itself with us on the opposite side of the bridge, and we both charged. Luckily, I knew that boars could move fast, but they were almost impossible to stop moving forwards and turn with, so a few seconds before we collided, I tugged the reigns, and Nyx dodged around the boar's tusks, and I lashed out with my sword arm, striking the large monster atop the boar. He looked dazed, and I could tell that one more hit and it would fall.

Once more We charged towards each other, the boar roaring with bloodlust, and once more I had Nyx dodge it's tusks, and slashed the monster across its face, leaving a deep gouge across its nose. It fell off the boar, falling into the canyon below us, and I quickly made to free Colin from the boar that was left, it seeming to have calmed down once it's master was knocked off of it.

Going back across the field, I picked Zach up, where he was cleaning the blood off of his sword, and Midna rejoined my shadow. We walked into town, and the rest of the kids crowded around, all talking about how cool we were and how they wanted to be stronger like us. Colin in particular mentioned how he wanted to be strong like us, not because we were strong, but because we were brave.

The kids told us of how the monsters were going to take Beth, but at the last moment Colin had pushed her away and let himself be taken. Zach and I were surprised that someone so young could be that fearless, and we encouraged him by saying that he did the right thing.

At some point, Colin passed out once more, and Renaldo brought him back into his house to treat him.


	12. Chapter 12

Night came and went, and once more in the morning I was practicing my magic with Midna.

 _You've got to think of a way to organize your thoughts and memories, Russell. How exactly are you going to make this work? What kinds of things will be easy for you to sort through?_

I thought about it. It seemed a little cliché, but honestly, a library seemed just right for me. And so I set about pulling together my memories, as well as bits and pieces of my life, and turning those thoughts into books. I manifested a bookshelf in my mind, and put these book memories on the bookshelf.

 _Hmm. Not bad at all._ Midna thought to me, her orange magic following through my mind as I worked it into shape. _You definitely have some polishing to do here and there, but otherwise it looks good. Let's go see how your magic is doing._

We made our way to the wall in my mind, pleased to see that the once small tendril of magic that I had pulled out was now quite large, due to the efforts made by me to slowly pull it through the crack in the wall. The hole was slowly becoming bigger, which as Midna told me, was a result of the magic being more comfortable with my mind.

 _This is looking good. Soon you'll just be able to knock down the whole wall and let the magic fill you. But not yet. That being said, I think that this is enough magic to be able to start learning how to use magic. The first step now is very simple. I need you to know your magic. Once you understand it, you can find it with ease. Learn to be able to locate your magic without thinking about your mind as a map. You need to be able to sense it within you. I'm going to need you to open your eyes._

I opened my eyes, blinking at the sunlight that filtered through my window. Midna still sat in the air near my head, her eyes closed.

 _Now that you are not in the Meditative stance, the first step of being able to use your magic is trying to locate it within you while not meditating. Don't be discouraged if you don't find it on your first try._

And so I tried. For about a half an hour, I tried to envision where my magic could possibly be, but to my slight dismay, I couldn't find it for the life of me.

 _That's alright, Russell. It takes a highly gifted magician only a few minutes to learn to find his or her magic, and while you might like to think that you're incredibly gifted, you're not quite a master sorcerer. It'll take quite a few days for you to learn to find your magic._

She pulled herself from my mind, and sighed. You've come a decent way since we started, but we're not making fast enough progress. Soon we'll be fighting stronger enemies, and what do you have to show of it? It's not like my powers are going to be of any help in a fight, given the weakened state I'm in…"

Her voice drifted off, and I almost didn't here that last part. So she had weakened magic? Even with the ability to teleport three people and a bridge and not have a drop of sweat? What kind of magical potential did she have in her unweakened state?

"Anyways," She said, "Practice is done for today, let's get climbing up Death Mountain again."

I nodded, and we headed out, finding Zach standing outside, talking to Talo.

"Come on, sir, you have to hear me out! Malo's been inside that abandoned shop all day, muttering to himself about how he's setting up or something! You've got to bring him out!"

Zach shrugged. "I'll see what's going on." He told the young boy, and made his way into the shop. A few minutes later, he was whistling to himself, and not only that, but he had a brand new shield on his back, this one looking like metal instead of just wood. He noticed me, and joined me as we approached the mountain.

"Malo's set up a general goods shop here in town. He only had one metal shield, and he said that wood shields are liable to burn up in the volcano on Death Mountain." I nodded. What an entrepreneur, that kid. He must only be like six or seven, and he's setting up a shop in the middle of a half destroyed town. He's sure to get some business from the locals.

"I wonder where he found the money or goods to set up his store…" I wondered aloud, and Zach just shrugged at me.

We made our way up, and this time when the Gorons rolled at us, Zach took the lead and put on the Iron Boots, and wrestled the rolling Gorons one by one passed us. We steadily made our way towards the peak, and once we got to the main area, we were fairly wary of the falling rocks that kept hitting the ground around us here and there.

Finally, a huge rock fell from the sky and lodged itself in the ground right in front of us. It must've been about seven floors tall if it were a building, and it was smoldering, heat radiated out from it.

"Whoa." Midna said, coming out of my shadow. "This looks dangerous. Is this the traditional Death Mountain welcome? Eee hee!" She went back into my shadow; and Zach and I kept watching out for more rocks falling from the sky, but they appeared to have slowed considerably with the coming of the huge stone.

All of the Gorons that we came across tried to give us trouble, and we had to use the Iron Boots to knock them all down one by one as we made our way up the mountain. Eventually we found ourselves at a cave, which we entered. Upon entering it, we were greeted by the sight of six Gorons in a line, and they all rolled into a ball, ready to bowl the two of us over.

Suddenly, a call of "Enough!" came from the entranceway on the other side of the room, and out walked a smaller Goron, this one with a thick beard and hair growing out of the sides of its head. "Are these young ones such imposing enemies that you must all gang up on them? I think not, Little Brothers."

The Gorons who had been moving to pummel us stopped their rolling, and they stood up straight, allowing Zach and I to approach the smaller Goron.

"I am a Goron elder, little humans. I am called Gor Coron. Because of certain… circumstances, I must lead the Goron tribe in place of Darbus, our tribal patriarch. Tell me, little humans, do you come from the village below? You have done well to come this far. You two are strong, for humans. However… The mines beyond here are sacred to my tribe. Outsiders are not allowed. Unless…" His eyes looked serious for a moment. And when I looked at Zach, I saw a strange glimmer in his eyes. I looked back at Gor Coron, and he was staring intently at Zach before he gave a smile.

"I could make an exception, but you would have to beat me in a contest of power. Are you willing to try this, little humans?"

Zach nodded, and Gor Coron laughed. "I will only test one of you, come and tell me which one I will test, and when you are ready. Zach nodded, and he quickly put on the Iron Boots. He approached the Goron elder and the set up the ring in the middle. It took a couple of tries, but on the third time in the ring, Zach got the upper hand after learning Gor Coron's strategy of wrestling.

"You have a strong spirit, and sharp eyes." Gor Coron said from the ground, rubbing his back as he picked himself up. "You have seen it then, the mountain erupting without pause. When the mountain began to rage, all four of us elders and Darbus went into the mines. We have a treasure that was entrusted to us by the spirits, and we must protect it. Do you understand? But the moment that Darbus reached out and grabbed the treasure, everything went wrong. He collapsed, and before our very eyes transformed into an unspeakable monster! He began to rage throughout the mines, trailing ruin behind him, and the eruptions grew more frequent and more severe. We used all of our strength to seal him deep inside the mountain. I ask this favor of you, Go aid Darbus, please!"

Zach and I nodded. We had no doubt that this treasure given them by the spirits to protect was a fused shadow, and creatures of the light should never touch them, as evidenced by the monster plant in the first temple.

"Alright, you two!" Gor Coron yelled. The two Gorons guarding the back entrance jumped slightly. "Let these heroes through, they will help us." The Gorons in question moved aside, and said, "Of course, Gor Coron."

We entered the mines, and we instantly understood why Zach's wooden shield would've been destroyed here. Lava poured from the ground, showing us a huge pit with rock spires poking out from the pools or molten rock below.

We jumped our way across, quickly figuring out how to maneuver around, using the Iron Boots to turn off lava flow here and there to bypass areas that they covered. Once we got to the next area, we killed a couple of monsters and grabbed a key from a chest that we found the lock to covering another door further in. We made our way through the next room, killing a new type of monsters, a group of lizards that had their tails exposed as opposed to the rest of them, their skin was like solid rock everywhere else.

We finally entered the next room, and found that it was half submerged in water. Zach used the Iron Boots first, going under the metal bars that covered the top, and flipping a switch that magnetized the blue rock above, making Zach go flying to it because the Iron Boots were attracted to it. once he was in a safe position, Midna brought the Iron Boots back over to my side, and I followed him to the other side.

We entered the next room, and were surprised to see one of the Goron elders there. He gave us a key shard and a map of the mines. He told us that the other two elders still in the mines had the other two key shards, and that together they would unlock the door that Darbus was locked inside.

On the top level of the room, we remet up with a strange creature that looks like a mix between a human and a chicken. We had met it before, I the Tree temple, and we were surprised to see it here. Its name was Ooccoo, and it said it had the power to bring us out of the dungeon at a moment's notice.

We progressed through the dungeon, trading off the Iron Boots, since most of the ways to progress seemed to need them, which didn't really make sense, unless the Gorons were magnetic. We soon found one of the other elders, who gave us the second key fragment, and he told us to take the treasure near him in the next room.

We advanced, and after dealing with a severely misinformed Goron, we finally got the treasure, which was a bow, coming with a quiver filled with arrows. We made our way forwards, and everything was a lot simpler now with the bow. There were laser beam statues that we hadn't been able to kill before, but we shot the gemstone that seemed like an eye, and they just broke down.

A couple of broken statues, and fighting our way passed hordes of small monsters later, and we had found the third Goron elder, who gave us the final key fragment. We made our way back to one of the rooms from earlier, and with the aid of our bow, we found a hidden passage, and finally found the room where they had sealed Darbus inside. We opened the door, and entered the room. It was dark, but we were able to see a completely black silhouette with a stone mask chained to the walls. A huge eyeball on the mask opened, and I pointed at the eyes that opened, and Zach nodded. Darbus, in his demon like form, caught fire and broke the chains before coming at us.

Zach was the one with the bow and arrow, so he shot arrows with fair precision at the eye on the helmet. He stamped around for a minute or so, his hands covering the eye, before he finally recovered, no damage seemingly done to him. How were were supposed to defeat him if we weren't supposed to just shoot the eye?

I studied him before realizing what I had to do. "Midna, give me the Iron Boots, Zach, shoot his eye again, and get ready for him to fall!"

Midna gave me the boots, and after Zach shot the eye, I put on the boots and grabbed one of the chains that wrapped around his feet. My weight held true, and I tripped Darbus over his own chain, making him fall to the ground. The eye was in clear sights right next to Zach, so he lashed at it with his blade, cutting deep into it.

Repeating the process a couple of times was easy once we knew what to do, and when Zach struck the final blow, the mask exploded into thousands of pieces of darkness. Darbus slowly shrank down to his normal size, and the pieces of darkness refused back together into another Fused Shadow. Midna reached up with her strange orange hair hand, and I realized that she was using her magic to control her hair in such a way. Her hair hand grabbed the Fused Shadow.

"Eee hee hee! Well done!" Midna said. "Now we have two Fused Shadows. Hmm… You know, you two have been very helpful so far, so as a reward, I'll tell you and interesting story. Zant. That's the name of the King of Darkness who cast this pall of shadows over your world. He's very strong. You two would be nothing to him in your current states. But Zant will never be my king! I have nothing but scorn for his supposed strength. Not that Zelda is much better… It still appalls me that this world of light is controlled by that princess. A carefree youth, a life of luxury. How does that teach duty?

But I guess that I shouldn't begrudge her the circumstances of her life. She didn't choose it, after all. And I would never wish harm on her… No, as long as I can get my hands on the Fused Shadows, I'll be just fine." She opened a portal on the ground near us. "Well, just one more left… Shall we? Eee hee hee!"

Darbus stood up. He had kind of like a crew cut hairstyle, and he was rubbing his head. "Urgh, what am I doing here? Unngh… My head, it aches… Oh I can't remember anything…" Seeing that we weren't going to get anything else out of him, we joined Midna at the portal and she teleported us out of there.

She teleported us to the Spring in Kakariko Village, where the Spirit spoke to us.

"Heroic Russell and Zachary… North of here, across the plain and past the great stone bridge, in the lands guarded by the spirit Lanayru… You shall find the one whom you seek…"

The spirit stopped talking to us, and we turned around to see the children. Colin approached us before collapsing, probably due to the exhausting kidnapping of the day before.

"Russell," He said. "Ilia, you've got to save Ilia! Those monsters left me with the other kids, but they must have taken her somewhere else! Whenever I thought I couldn't go on, I would think of you and Zach, and Ilia and hold on, Russell." He stood up. "See, I'm fine now. Now go save Ilia!"

Renaldo approached. "Leave the children in my hands. I will watch over them, I swear it. Go and aid those who need you two. In Hyrule, countless tales are told of the ancient hero, and your deeds bring them all to mind. May the grace of the great goddesses who shaped Hyrule bear you two on your way."

Zach and I looked at each other and smiled. "We'll do everything we can to find your friend. We promised your parents and the Mayor that we would find all of the children from Ordon, and that includes Ilia." Zach said to Colin.

"And we're about to be on our way, but it's probably close to sundown, so we should stay here for the night."

Renaldo smiled. "Of course," He said. "And then you can tell us about how you helped the Gorons, one has already come down and apologized for their tribes actions."

We smiled. "Well, it's a long story, involving a lot of sumo wrestling…"


	13. Chapter 13

When I woke up the next morning, I was sore all over, likely a result of lifting and pulling several tons worth of pure Goron muscle the day before. I tried to meditate, but Midna told me to not strain my body any more, it wouldn't be good for my magical energies to try and work it in my hurt state.

We stayed a couple of days in Kakariko resting up. We hadn't really had a chance to do so since the day before the children had gotten kidnapped, and we had been running around nonstop for almost a week. Taking a break allowed us to sooth our aches and pains away in the spring of Eldin, and after a few days of friendly interactions with the Gorons and assuring the children that we would find Ilia, we set off.

Before we left of course, we showed the kids how to shoot their own miniature forms of bows that they had made, and we went into Barnes' bomb shop and stocked up on some bombs. Barnes informed us that we could actually combine arrows and bombs to make bomb arrows, and he showed us how to do so.

I was content to allow Zach priority over the weapons and their usage, and he was more than happy to be blowing up monsters with our bombs. I just had to remind him not to waste them all.

We had left our horse back in Kakariko Village under Renaldo's care, with the reasoning that if we were entering the Twilight, we had no idea what kind of effect it would have on her, if she would go crazy or what, and we wanted to maintain her trust in us. So we spent a couple more days traveling across the fields of Hyrule than we might have otherwise.

Meanwhile, I continued to practice my magic with Midna every morning. On the dawn of the third day, I finally managed to find my magic while not in a meditative state. Inside my mind, I had pulled it out so much that it was more than halfway pulled through, the hole being little more than the size of my fist at this point. While not meditating, I suddenly came across my magic as if it were a beacon that I could suddenly see in the dark of night.

I pulled at it some more, and I felt it brush with my mind. "Alright Russell, You should stop there." Midna said. "Zach just woke up and you know we're getting close to the Twilight, we just have to cross the bridge." I reluctantly let go of my magic, feeling like I was just on the edge of something, but I let it go.

"Good morning." Zach greeted me as he pulled out some food from his backpack. "How has your magic training been going?" He asked. I had decided to tell him a couple of days ago that I was learning magic, and he had though that it was a good idea, but he decided that it would be a lot more work than he needed to put in, plus training would mean that he had to wake up early, which he wasn't about to do anytime soon.

"It's going well; I finally felt my magic this morning while not meditating." I told him, pulling out my own breakfast.

"That's good; soon you'll be slinging around spells left and right, taking down the monsters with magic while I kill them with all sorts of cool items!" He laughed. That was one of the things that I liked about Zach, even way before we came to Hyrule. He had always been different from me in most things. Sure we both liked to play video games, but what teenage boys didn't? Aside from that we didn't have a lot of similarities, but Zach never let that get in between us, and we had been friends for almost a decade.

After we ate, we made our way across the bridge and came to a giant rock that was wedged in between the mountain walls.

"Looks like it must have fallen down at one point. I don't think we're going to be able to get through here." I said, examining it, before I heard pray tell of a match being struck behind me.

"Hey Russell, get out of there!" Zach shouted, and I turned around, seeing him holding the match under the fuse to one of his bomb arrows, knocking the bow and aiming straight at the rock. I jumped away from the rock, and Zach let the arrow loose, blowing up the entire rock with one bomb.

He gave a wide grin, and said, "Now, what was that about not being able to pass this way?" I just stuck out my tongue at him before I saw a huge purple and black portal appear in the sky above the bridge, before it teleported the middle of the bridge away, leaving us stranded on this side. It dropped three of the large black monsters down on the bridge on our side, and they came charging at us.

This was new; we had only ever fought the black beasts in our animal forms. It was relatively easy for us to knock the monsters down, but we couldn't draw animal energy up in our human form to kill them all at once. The monsters fell probably seven times, their allies roaring to bring them back before Zach and I took down one target first and finally managed to kill the other two separately at the same time.

"That was quite the ordeal." Zach said, wiping his brow of sweat as the smoke rose and turned the purple and black portal into a teal and black portal. "It's a good thing that we have a portal here though, wouldn't you say? That way, when we find the bridge, we can teleport it back here."

I nodded, and we made our way to the portal, where Midna pulled us through. We once more turned into our animal forms, me a Snow Leopard, and Zach a Wolf. "Alright!" Midna said, jumping on top of my back. "This is the last stretch of twilight, only one more Fused Shadow to go! Now that we're back in the twilight, I can help you again! But what a shame that this is indeed the last of the twilight… I had become so fond of seeing it covering this world. Or, is it really the last you two will see of it? Eee hee! Let's get going!"

My eyes narrowed as I began walking. What had Midna meant when she said that? She had just blatantly implied that when we restored this next area that it wouldn't be the last twilight area that we would see? What was going to happen?

We made our way forward, ignoring the couple of bats that flew through the air. Eventually, we came across a broken bag on the mountain path, and Zach's ears perked up.

"I can smell this too for it's scent. I can track this." He told us, and went and took a deep whiff of the stuff.

"Nice…" I said with a cat smirk. "Trying to get a teenagers scent in your nose, what would your mom think if she heard?"

He swiped at me with his front paw. "You know what I'm doing Russell, now let's go, the scent leads this way." He took off at a run, and I followed behind him. We darted through the mountain pass before finally coming across a great field, a castle in the distance.

"Hey, haven't we all seen this castle before? Eee hee hee!" Midna said, laughing a little bit. "So, we've finally made it back here! Well, only a little farther, so hang in there! Or so I'd like to say, but it's only going to get a lot harder from here on out. Eee hee! Alright, let's get started."

We made our way across the field, feeling now fatigue as our animal forms seemed to have a lot more speed and stamina than our human bodies. We followed the road all the way to Castle Town's West entrance, where Zach kept following the scent into the town. I saw a bunch of spirits and decided that I would hone my beast's senses, and overheard a couple of people talking. Someone was talking about a Zora child who had collapsed but was currently being taken care up by a woman named Telma at her bar. And the other people said a few other things like how there was a water outage, random snippets here and there.

I followed Zach through the streets, knowing that the spirits could not see me in my beast state. We walked all over town, the scent seemed to have stopped at a medical clinic at the East side of town, before heading into the southern part of the city. Finally we followed the scent all the way to, surprise surprise, Telma's bar!

The sign outside said that it was open, and the door was ajar, so we let ourselves in. We found a bunch of Hylian knights surrounding a map, as well as a fairly well-endowed woman standing near Ilia and the Zora boy that we had heard about.

Ilia was watching the boy and asked the woman. "This boy, can you save him?"

The woman said, "All right, little lady, try to settle down, ok? I just now sent for the Doctor! But this is indeed strange, a child of the Zoras. I wonder if this is at all related to the incident the soldiers were talking about in the back…" They remained silent after that, so we wandered to where the soldiers were talking about. They mentioned that the citizens were upset that they couldn't pray to the spring spirit, and marked the map with the location. Midna took out our own map and made a mark on it where we could find the spirit, and we took off.

We left the town, making our way across the western fields and heading towards where we had seen a map marked on the soldier's map. As we crossed the bridge, Midna stopped us short suddenly.

"Hey, do you smell anything funny?" She said, a look of concern on her face as she furrowed her brows. I smelt the ground, and realized that it was slick with lantern oil. A monster came out from the shadows at the end of the bridge, pulling out a bow with fire arrows. A look of horror crossed our faces as it shot an arrow, it soaring high above us, lighting the oil from the end of the bridge that we had come from. It knocked another arrow, and before we knew it, the other side of the bridge also had fire coming, we were stuck between two walls of fire!

"Hey, we're in a bind now, find us a way out!" Midna shouted in a frenzied state, clearly worried that she would be burned alive. Zach and I looked around, and all we saw where a few wooden crates left strewn about, and the edge of the bridges around us.

"Hey Russell?" Zach asked me. "Didn't the maps the soldiers had show that there was a lake underneath the bridge?"

My eyes widened. "Well, yes, but the fall alone would be enough to kill us, we're talking about a few hundred yard drop!" He smirked.

"Well, let's hope that Midna can use some hocus pocus magic power to slow our fall, or we're not getting out of this alive!" And so he jumped on the ledge, and I followed suit.

"What!" Midna screamed in my ears. "You have got to be kidding me! There is no way that we're going to survive the drop!"

Zach jumped, and so did I.


	14. Chapter 14

Have you ever fallen to your death? It's slow, at least at first. The wind rushes by you, giving you a rush of exhilaration, and you feel like you're soaring through the skies. That is, until you realize that you are probably going to die on impact with the water below, due to the way that physics work with terminal velocity and all that jazz.

As I watched the water approach steadily, I couldn't help but feel like I should be able to do something about this. Maybe it's just my subconscious saying that the magical lights that brought me here wouldn't have do so if they knew that I would die, but I suppose that was more like a last ditch effort to save their world than knowing that we would actually succeed.

Regardless, as we approached the water, I closed my eyes, going into a half meditative stance. If I was going to die, then I might as well be at peace with myself. It wasn't until I entered my mind that I saw what was going on inside. My magic was going on a rampage, crashing into the bookshelves of memories that I had created for myself, breaking things left and right. That wouldn't do, so I grabbed ahold of my magic.

It thrashed under my hold, threatening to break my control over it, but I stood firm. Here I was, about to die, but I was not about to die someone who had no control over my magic. I looked to where it was connected to the wall, astounded to find that the hole was now the size of my torso. I looked down at my magic and decided, hey I'm going to die; I might as well free the magic in my mind, right?

I gave it a yank, forcing my magic to break through the wall that it had been behind. The amount of pure magical energy that crashed down was enormous, well over thrice the size that Midna had said I had left. I was astounded by the amount of magic that flooded my mind.

It was then that I could see the color of my magic. It was still a light color, not unlike the white brightness that I had only been able to see of it until now. It was a bright pink, glowing and undulating before me, calming down inside my mind now that it was finally free, and I knew that I could use this.

My eyes opened, and I was astounded to see that only a moment had passed in between when I closed my eyes and opened them. I focused on my magic, and heard a gasp from my back as Midna felt the power radiating from me, as though I was harnessing the power of a hurricane.

I grasped the magic in my mind and understood; this was a part of me, and I was part of the magic. It was just like any other appendage, like an arm or a leg, and now I needed to learn how to use it. My instincts flared out as I approached the water, and my magic lashed out, suddenly slowing both Zach's and mine own descent through the air. It reached out and grabbed the water below us, stirring it up so that we would not be hitting stilled waters, which I vaguely remembered would mean that the impact would hurt less.

And then we hit the water, and even though the strain of hitting it hurt like hell, we were still alive, and Zach and I swam to the surface. The first thing that we noticed was that the lake was merely a puddle at this point, with barely any room around us. We had been incredibly lucky that we had fallen right into the water, else we would have been flattened by the ground that was only a few feet away from us.

As we approached the shore, we saw a couple of spirits huddled around. Turning on our beast senses showed us that they were Zora, and they were talking about how the source of water flow must have been cut off, up in the Zora's Domain. I filed that information away for later, and we progressed onwards. We passed by a house, where a man was talking about how the Lake had dried up. He noticed a monster nearby, and instantly dropped into a fetus position and hid.

We wandered over to the monster, trying to take it down, but when we got there, it went over to some strange grass that we had seen around Ordon Village. It whistled through the grass, and a huge black twilight bird came flying down, and the smaller monster jumped on the black bird back.

The smaller monster had a bow with fire arrows, so it shot them for a bit before the bird came swooping down, and we took that chance to jump it, attacking the beast and knocking the monster on its back off. It didn't attack us once more as we took down its rider, and Midna quickly made her way up and sat on its back. it trashed for a moment, realizing that it had a new rider.

"Hey, stop that!" Midna called. "I'm your new master now! Settle down!" Did she seriously think that was going to work? Apparently it had indeed worked, because it quickly settled down. "Alright, we can use this to go up to the Zora's Domain!" She exclaimed before having the bird grab us in its talons carefully. It flew towards where the Zoras had pointed towards, where the Zora's Domain was located.

The bird flew us through a large cave, filled to the brim with monsters with bomb arrows. They kept shooting down stalactites from the roof of the café, making rocks rain down on us from above, but Midna pulled on the reins of the black monster bird, making it weave this way and that to dodge arrows and rocks alike. Eventually, we exited the cave, and the bird dropped us in front of a house. Midna let it fly away, choosing to join back up with us, and we ventured forward once more.

It wasn't until then that we saw the howl stone, across from us at the other dry riverbed. We stared at it for a moment before pretend face palming, since we couldn't really do it in our animal forms. We had forgotten to unlock the Hidden ability that was down near Ordon Spring! We checked our map, and sure enough, the marker was still on our map, glowing. How had we forgotten to go check it out?

No matter, we were in the twilight now, and we wouldn't be able to learn the song anyways. We looked for a way to cross the riverbank, but it was on a raised hill, and the bridge that might normally connect the two banks was lying as the bottom of the dried riverbed. There was no way that we were going to get to the other howl stone, at least not yet.

We continued onwards, and quickly found that the next area seemed frozen over.

"Hey, I thought it was getting colder…" Midna said, shivering atop my back. "But who would have guessed that is would be all frozen? This is the Zora Village, right? I don't see any spirits around, I wonder…Well, let's check things out and fin those Zoras." I nodded, and we walked forwards. Luckily, due to my being a snow leopard, the cold didn't hinder me much; my fur coat was fairly thick and protected my from the low temperature.

As we went further inwards, we soon realized that there was an entire waterfall that was frozen over, pieces hanging out and such.

"Hmm, I think that you guys should be able to jump up the ice ledges." Midna said, and she showed us a path up the waterfall, making sure that we didn't fall. Once we were up on top, we saw a cave with fancy looking metalwork framing it. We walked into the cave and were astounded to see some black beasts in the middle of an open room, surrounding a bunch of spirits, who looked to be cowering Zora. Upon further inspection, the spirits were in fact incased in the ice below, and we quickly rushed to kill the black beasts. Upon doing so, a teal and black portal appeared in the sky above us.

"We're going to need a way to thaw them out." I said. "We can't just leave them like this. Plus I imagine that the spring Spirit won't see us if the lake is all dried up."

Zach nodded. "If only we had a means to melt it. We could do with a really big piece of smoldering coal right now… Wait a second, the giant stone that erupted from Death Mountain! Do you think it's still hot?"

I thought about it, and nodded. We got Midna to warp us to Death Mountain, where we soon saw the giant rock in question and had Midna teleport us and it back to the Zora's Domain. Once we got there, Midna dropped the heated boulder into the giant frozen pool, and it quickly melted the ice, and even brought it to a boil, melting the rest of the ice as it traveled out of the cave.

"Who knew that something so dangerous would come in handy… Alright, the Zoras are safe now, so let's go. The ice melted and restored to water flow to normal. Can we finally meet the spirit of Lake Hylia?" Midna said, taking a look around at all the spirits that now surrounded the room.

We turned on our beast senses and saw that most of the spirits were just breathing heavy. This confused me a little bit, since they were spirits. Surely they didn't need oxygen in that state? Maybe it was just part of the magic? I didn't really understand the twilight curse that made others spirits. As we made to leave the room however, the image of a fairly tall Zora woman appeared.

"Please, you must allow me to thank you for revitalizing both my people and this spring, which is the water source for all the lands of Hyrule." The spirit like image said. "In life, I was the village elder, the queen of the Zora named Rutela."

Midna intervened. "Not to be rude, but we didn't exactly do it for you guys…"

Rutela continued nonetheless. "The dark ones, they raided this village and, as a message to my people, executed me before them. Young men, you two who take the forms of proud beasts. I have something to ask of you. When the dark ones descended upon our village, I sent my young one, Ralis, to Hyrule Castle to inform Zelda of our fate. But, I fear danger followed him from this doomed place. I feel it, his presence grows fainter to me over time. But my time in this world has passed, and though I would give it gladly, I no longer have a life to risk in his rescue. Please, would you save my dearest, Prince Ralis?"

I looked at Zach and said, "That must be the young Zora boy in Telma's care." He nodded, and we agreed to do it.

"Thank you. If you do this, I will bestow upon you the protection of water. This power will grant you the ability to swim and respire in very deep water as if you were a Zora yourself. Please, save my son."

"Hmm, so if we help her, she'll grant you guys the power to swim in water like a Zora, huh? So then, what do you say? Although I suppose you shouldn't meet the prince looking like a wolf and a giant cat, huh? Eee hee hee!"

We left the cave, and jumped in the water, letting it pull us all the way downstream till we were back at Lake Hylia. We quickly found that we were right near the door to the spirit's springs, so we entered. We greeted the spirit, got the grapevine looking things, and made our way outwards.

We killed another trio of black beasts, causing another portal to turn teal for us near the entrance of the spring, and made our way to killing all of the bugs. We killed the few that were down by the lake, and used to grass whistle song to howl for the bird to come back. It did, and Midna took the reins once more and we flew up to the area with the howl stone. Now that water was flowing through, we made our way to the other side.

The wind flowed through the stone, and after listening for a moment, Zach begun to howl. He was getting good at it, which I suppose was a good thing, considering that our ability to get new weapon techniques was based on it. We once more appeared in the area that looked like the in between of regions, combing mountains and grassy fields and the ocean all at once. Zach howled the sing once more, and the golden wolf showed up to sing his duet.

The golden wolf told us to find him, and this time another glowing mark appeared on our map near the west entrance to Castle Town. While we were looking at the map, we realized that one of the bugs was actually in Castle Town, and we decided to go to it last. A couple of Zoras stood nearby, discussing how the path ahead of us was the quickest way back to the Castle, so we resolved to come back this way once we had the remaining pieces of light.

After teleporting to the top of the Zora's domain, we killed the remaining bugs one by one until there were two spaces of light left. We headed back and towards castle town. When we got to the entrance, another portal showed up and dropped three black beasts. At this point, it was almost laughable how easily we killed them, and I grew suspicious. Either these things were the best that Zant could throw at us, or he was planning some huge fight later on.

Once in castle town, we quickly found and killed one bug, but that was all that was on our map, at least, until another mark appeared in the middle of the lake.

"What's this?" Midna said, looking at the map. "The last bug is in the middle of the lake? This seems fishy to me." We headed back down to the lake, and was astounded by what we saw. There, in the middle of the lake was a huge bug, probably the mother of all the others that we had killed. We knew that we needed to take it down, so we made our way onto some wooden pieces that were strewn in the water near it.

The battle was hard, since we could only move on the wooden planks in the water. Eventually, it would turn its attention towards one of us, and the other would strike, jumping onto its back and biting and clawing at it. We did this over and over again, until finally it curled in a ball in the water, unmoving but not dead. We jumped onto its now exposed belly and tore it to pieces, ripping its carapace from the rest of its body like when I tore the armor off that huge boar riding monster.

It eventually died, and we got the last piece of light in our grapevine thing. We returned to the spring, where we handed over the grapevine and the world turned to light once more, returning us to our human forms.

"You make sure to get that last Fused Shadow now." Midna said as she jumped into my shadow. The spirit of Lanayru came from the water, looking like a mighty snake, quite larger than the other three spirits had been. It introduced itself, and told us the all of the light spirits were now restored. It told us then that the Fused Shadow lay in the temple at the bottom of Lake Hylia, and then showed us a vision, claiming that we must see it. He said that the goddesses locked away the Fused Shadows for a reason.

There was chaos initially, and the goddesses created all life equally, and everyone lived in peace. The sacred realm held the power of creation that the goddesses had left behind, and soon people were clamoring to take this power for themselves. A powerful group of sorcerers took control, and attacked everyone that came near, claiming the sacred realm for themselves. It was then that the goddesses intervened, taking away the power that those sorcerers had, and split it into pieces, giving them to the spirits. This horrible power, that corrupted those men in times of peace, was the power of the Fused Shadow.

It warned us that power can corrupt, and that if we sought to use it for the sake of power, that the darkness would consume us too. Zach looked at me and we both nodded. This was something that we couldn't allow to happen; we would not be taken by darkness. After all, that's why we were here, to fight it.

Lanayru nodded. "Like I said, the dark power you seek is within the sleeping Lakebed Temple on Lake Hylia." And the spirit disappeared once more, leaving us to our work. We walked outside the cave and realized it was night time, so we set up camp outside the cave and went to sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

I woke up early the next morning, way before I normally do, with the moon still low on the horizon and no hint of light to be seen at all. I looked around and saw that the campfire was still burning from the night before, though it was really more like embers at this point. I set up the fire again, laying logs on it and blowing the embers so that they would spread the heat. Once I had a fire going once more, Midna popped out of my shadow.

She yawned as she emerged. "What're you doing awake so early?" She asked me.

"Dunno, just woke up and wanted some warmth from the fire. I figured that I would relight the embers of last night's fire." She nodded, and we sat there in silence for a moment.

"Hey so…" She began to say. "While we were free falling through the air, I felt you break down the wall in your mind to the magic, how are you doing?" I was surprised; this must be the first time that she seemed to care for my well-being.

"I'm actually doing quite well. While we were falling, my magic was going on a rampage in my head, and it wasn't until after I tore down the wall that it flooded in and calmed down. I really don't know how to explain it, but it appears docile at the moment."

She nodded, and sighed with relief. "That's good. I was going to have you wait at least another week before I had you attempt anything like that, but I'm glad that everything worked out." She gave a half-hearted laugh. "Eee hee… Anyways, I saw you use your magic to slow your magic and move the water, how on earth did you do that without being trained?"

I pondered this for a moment. I had actually had barely any training in how to control my magic, but the instinct to save my life had made my magic act by itself. "I'm not sure myself… All I know is that I was panicking and my magic seemed to use my subconscious understanding of the way physics worked to save all of our lives."

"Hmm." She said. "Well, anyways, now that you have control over all of your magic, you're going to have to train hard to learn what to do with it!" She gave a soft grin, and I smiled back at her.

She then proceeded to have me meditate for another hour, saying that I actually needed to get used to the feel of my magic now that I had access to all of it. Even though before I was spending time with it in my head, I needed to learn to understand my magic myself.

After we were done, I felt quite refreshed, rather than the slightly tired state I usually was in after meditating. "It's because you don't need to worry about the wall in your mind hold you back from your magic anymore." Midna told me. I just shrugged and guessed that she was right.

Once the sun rose, Zach and I made our way towards the house in the middle of the lake. "Hello! This is my cannon shooting ride!" Said the man up front. "For a small fee of ten rupees, I will shoot you up to my family's house near the bridge up there! Completely safe and free of worries, my cannon is magically equipped to make sure that you land safely!"

Since we had no other way up, we took him up on the deal and got blasted through the air before landing softly on a porch attached to a house.

Midna got out and said, "Now that I remember, didn't the queen in Zora's Domain ask you to save her kid? She said she would get you the power to swim like a Zora, and the last Fused Shadow is on the bottom of the lake, so you really need that ability!"

Zach nodded, and we headed on the road back to Castle Town. It took us less than a day's travel, thanks to the cannon ride that we had gotten on. As we approached the west entrance, we saw the golden wolf and approached it.

Once more it jumped at Zach's head, and once more we were in the land of white, the skeleton warrior in front of us. "We meet again." It said. "You two look a little more like heroes than you did before, do you feel ready to learn your next skill?" We nodded, and it progressed. "Excellent. But first, I must test the two of you to make sure that you have mastered the last skill I taught you, the ending blow. Now then, come at me!"

And so we did. For a skeleton warrior, he was surprisingly easy to knock down, probably he was letting us, and we drove our blades into him, where his stomach would be if he had one.

"Excellent. It appears that you are certainly capable of performing my lost art. Very well, my second skill is called the shield smash! Let it be hewn into your minds!" It turned to me, and suddenly I was outfitted with a glowing shield, lightweight and compact. "I understand that you will not always have a shield, but there will be circumstances where you will need this skill to succeed, so I need you both to learn it. Now, no matter how well-tempered a blade is, if a foe is clad in armor and bears a shield, the sword will do it no harm. When facing such a foe, you must thrust your shield against the defenses of your enemy, causing the fiend to recoil, giving you the opportunity to strike!"

The skeleton warrior had us thrust our shields against him, giving us the chance to strike him. We practiced the movement until it no longer felt clunky, and we smiled when he stopped engaging us.

"Nice work!" He said to us. "The shield smash I have just taught you can also be used to repel an enemy's projectile attacks. Would you like to practice? Then repel my magical attack with your shield attack!"

And so we fought once more, him targeting us back and forth, allowing us to hit his magical attack with our shields, bouncing it right back at him. We quickly learned how bounce the magic back at our foes with our shields, and it was quite the learning experience.

"Perfect!" He finally said. "When your enemies assail you with projectiles, this is how you will defeat them with ease! Your training is complete, you two have learned the second of my hidden skills, the shield smash! I have five more secrets to teach you, in time. The path to becoming true heroes is a long one, but once you two have grasped all of the hidden skills, you shall be worthy of walking it. You must persist on the lonely paths of the sword to obtain true courage and earn the strength to conquer the great evils of this world. Do no forget you discipline with the blade before we meet again!"

The world faded, and once more we were at the entrance to Castle Town. We crossed the bridge and entered town. We already knew where Prince Ralis was, so we headed towards Telma's bar. Once we got there, we heard loud voices coming from inside, so we walked in.

"That is a Zora child! This is beyond my expertise! Hmmmph!" Said the doctor as he stormed towards us, or rather the door, slamming it shut behind him. Ilia ran up to the door and shouted after him,

"Doctor, wait! If something isn't done, this child will surely…" She turned away, and walked back to the Zora child. "This isn't good. A human doctor won't do, huh?"

Telma spoke up. "That old coot reminded me, though. I've heard of a shaman in Kakariko Village, in the Eldin lands, who has tended both Zoras and Gorons alike."

"Is that true? Perhaps if we take him there…" Ilia said, trailing off.

"Inadvisable, it's too dangerous!" Said a guard who had been pouring over the map from earlier, clearly having overheard. But we can't turn a blind eye to a pretty girl in need, either! We'd best escort you! Am I right boys?!" They all cheered and raised their spears.

"Well, isn't that nice." Telma said. "To reach Kakariko, we've got to cross two plains that are each infested by dangerous monsters. But we're safe now!" She looked over, and only one soldier was left, the others having taken off through the door near us. "Cowards!" Telma called. "Don't ever show your faces around here again!"

Then she noticed Zach and I. "Oh my!" She said, walking over. "Looks like we've got two young swordsmen left!" I held out my hand, and the lady took mine and gave me a handshake.

"We'll help out, we actually know exactly how to get the Kakariko, seeing as how we just fought monsters on the way here."

Telma smiled. "How kind of you. See that?" She called to Ilia. "These brave young men will escort us, so let's get ready to go, pronto!" Ilia nodded, and rushed into the next room, presumably to grab a couple of supplies. "Now." Telma started. "You two know that girl, don't you?" Zach nodded, stepping forward.

"She was one of the children taken from Ordon Village by monsters. We're just some travelers who promised the parents that we'd see the children all returned to them safely. The rest of the children are ironically in Kakariko, so us helping you is actually just us fulfilling part of our promise.

"It's a shame then. She can't even remember her own name right now. Bless her heart though… She found this poor boy collapsed on the road, so she did all she could to save him. More courage in that girl than in all the soldiers of Hyrule, for sure! You two lend her some of your strength, all right?"

We got suited up, and Telma lent us her own personal horse from the Town stables. We discussed how to get to Kakariko, and we told her about how the bridge in the east had been completely destroyed by the twilight monsters.

"Then our only option is to cross the bridge in the west." She said, pointing at it on the map. "I've heard pray tell that a huge monster on a boar rides there on the bridge, completely armed and covered in armor. You'll be very hard pressed to defeat him."

Zach smiled. "This is why we've got these." He said, pulling out some unlit bombs and arrows from his backpack. We'll shoot him with bomb arrows straight to the face, and knock him off the bridge so hard that nobody sees him this side of the country ever again!" I had to agree, bomb arrows to the face seemed like an excellent plan.

"I'll leave you two to deal with the monster then. Zach, you can ride my horse, since yours is in Kakariko. Russell, you will stay with us to protect the carriage in case any other monsters attack us." We nodded, and headed out to do what we planned. It was actually quite anticlimactic once the plan got put in place, and there were no monsters on the road to the bridge, so we all watched as Zach shot five bomb arrows into both the boar's face and the monster's face, blinding both of them.

The boar charged into the side of the bridge, knocking the monster overboard, and once more it became calm with the absence of its rider. We searched the wild boar and found a large key on it, clearly this was going to be important for later, and made our way through the fields.

What came when we entered Hyrule field was the worst of it though, and we were riding for our lives. Smaller monsters rode boars and shot the carriage with fire arrows, and I kept using the gale boomerang's power to blow the fire out. Zach rode the horse like a pro, shooting the bow at monsters I didn't even see, and I heard explosions here and there as I rode up front with Telma.

We rode through the dark, since nighttime had come, and after a couple of hours of travel, we were finally through the danger. The key that we had taken off the boar from earlier being the key to the large gates that covered the entrance to the west Hyrule field and to Kakariko village to the south.

We got there and quickly unloaded Prince Ralis into Renaldo's care, giving him the lowdown of the situation. After another two hours of standing outside, hoping that the prince would be alright, Renaldo came outside.

"He has passed through the worst of it. As long as he rests, he should recover in due time." The shaman said. "Do you know the fate of his mother? Her welfare consumes him. He has been mumbling deliriously about her almost constantly." Zach and I shook our heads in sorrow and informed the man that she had died.

We walked inside to see Ilia and Colin talking, before Colin came out to see us. "It's true, isn't it?" He asked. "She's lost her memory, hadn't she?"

Renaldo spoke up. "Yes Colin, she has indeed lost her memory. And regaining it will be no simple task. But it will be all right child. If we give her some time, I'm sure that she will find her heart again. And so I'd like to ask you to stay in this village until then. It is our turn to show the courage that you have displayed." Colin smiled and ran back into the room.

Telma approached us, having overheard. "It's nice to see that there's still hope here. And it's always good to see happy results repay your efforts. Those skills of yours, any chance you're of the mind to put them to use for Hyrule? What hope there is in our kingdom is frail and dying, but there's still a group trying to do what it can. And I'm a member of that group." She said, giving us a smile and approached, extending her hand this time. I shook it first, and then Zach did.

"We've already introduced ourselves, but call me Telma. I'm going to stay here a little bit longer, I'm still worried about the children, but I want to see you two at my bar again, you hear? The bar is a sort of safe house for my friends. There's a passageway that leads to the castle from there, as well. If you ever need anything, just stop by and I'll see what I can do."

We nodded at the slightly older woman and watched as she walked off towards Renaldo. Suddenly, the visage of the Zora queen appeared before us before pointing at the village cemetery. We nodded and walked towards it, knowing that the queen was going to keep her promise. She followed us, and then disappeared into a stone at the far end of the cemetery, making it disappear and showing a path further inside. Zach and I followed the path and came across a large pool of water, as well as a gravestone that the Zora queen floated beside. As we approached, the queen spoke to us.

"I am deeply grateful to you two for aiding my son in his time of need. You were right to bring him here. Kakariko Village is a sacred place for the Zora people; it is where we take our eternal rest. My husband in life, King Zora, also rests his spirit here. It is no coincidence that my son found his salvation in this place. That which I have promised you reside within this grave. During his lifetime, my husband made garments specifically for the chosen hero of legend, in case he should ever return to stop another evil, garments that house the abilities of the Zora." She pushed aside the headstone, and we picked up the garments in question.

"This is the Zora Armor, and you shall use it to swim like a Zora, breathe underwater, and travel to the Temple beneath the Lake. Now, at last, I can join the king in slumber. And yet, my son knows nothing of my death. If you see him again, please pass on this message. Tell him not to grieve his mother's passing. Tell him she wanted him to be brave and live on as the king of our people. And, tell him that his mother loves him without end. Tell him this." And she faded away, turning towards the grave as she lost opacity and became invisible to our eyes.

Midna came out of my shadow. "Well then, it's good you finally found all of the children from Ordon, and you picked up the nifty Zora Armor. Although, there's two of you, and one suit of armor! Eee hee! But aren't you guys forgetting something kind of important? That last Fused Shadow… Remember what the light spirit said. He said you would need the Fused Shadows to defeat the dark overlord Zant and save the world. So even if you go back now with all of the people you saved, the whole tragedy would just repeat itself. So let's grab that shadow!" She disappeared back into my shadow, and I looked at Zach.

"Before we go, we should rest up, it is nighttime after all." Zach said, and I nodded. And so we headed back towards the town for some rest, unknowing that it was the last time that we would rest in quite some time.


End file.
